The Greater Evil III : Silent Destiny
by Guillaume HJ
Summary: With the defeat of the Crimson Lotus, peace is not yet to enter Ash's life. Through the eternity of time, whispers of destiny call nine heroes to a millenial confrontation - and, with a year left, only two - Ash and Misty - are found...
1. Prophecies

The Greater Evil III : Time of Ruins

Part I : Awakened Prophecies

Chapter I : Path of Prophecy

Burned ruins. The terrible fighting to halt the wave of destruction that had been known as the Crimson Lotus had taken it's toll, and now the small town of Pallet was in ruin. Pushing away his black hair, Ash brushed a tear from his eyes, looking at his fallen hometown. For hundreds of years Pallet had been a thriving little town, slowly building to what it had become by the time he had been born. And in a few days, it had been torn down.

"It's sad isnt't it?" Kyle's voice said from behind him. "It took humans so much time to build this town - and so little time to tear it down..."

Ash nodded somberly, his thoughts elsewhere, on the many memories lost, his memories of Pallet town. Memories forever marred by the destruction of the town, and more so by the fact that the one who was to blame for it was a childhood friend, even more, a childhood love.

"Mankind...so quick to tear things apart, so slow to build them..." Kyle continued, his voice strangely quiet. "It's almost ridiculous, really." He was silent once more, as they headed toward the outskirts of the town, the only area were some house still stood after the battle, especially to the west.

Taking their bearing on the tower of the Oak laboratory, they slowly made their way there, Ash reflecting on the irony that one of the few building that had been spared was the one that logic seemed to say would have been a prime target for the Lotus. His house, near the laboratory, had also been sparred, and that was where they were going ,walking through the rubble-filled street, trying not to hear the complaints of all the citizens who returned only to see their own houses, ruined.

As they neared Ash's house, they found friends waiting, Damian and Richie, Melody not far from them, looking at a map, their eyes lost in thought.

"What are you guys doing? Trying to guess where the other seven are by looking at a map?" Ash asked, pushing aside the dark thoughts, trying to think of his friends, those that were still alive. With a flicker of his wrists, he drew his blade and released his pokemon. Sora's mane flared in happiness, as Deathwing looked around with his head, his eyes obviously searching for any threat. Ashura looked lazily at him, and Khamul took a shrewd glance at everyone, as if he was trying to evaluate their weakness, planning to attack them. Ash gave his pokemon a warning look, trying to make him understand that attacking his friend would not be a good idea, and Khamul seemed to recoil. 

Fenrir instinctively moved close to Ash, looking around for something that might quality as a threat, and Esper looked curiously as her master. Aysen glanced disdainfully around, then ignored them all. And then, one last shape formed, the only one of Gary's pokemon that had been out of the pokeball when the young man had died and had not disappeared with Gary's body. Roaring fiercely, yet sadly, the female arcanine came out, looking around then letting her gaze rest on Fenrir. Her name was Morro, she had told him. 

"No, just trying to guess were we should be going now." Damian replied, his tone serious. Apparently, he had missed the joke in Ash's voice.

"Best way to do that would be to ask an oracle." Melody said laughing. "They're supposed to predict the future or some such!" As she laughed, they all turned toward her, their eyes wide open, not believing that she had probably found the answer with her joke.

"Aysen?" Ash asked, turning toward the dragon pokemon.

"I suppose we should be looking for the rest of the nine for now. Best way to do that would be to find their oracles, since Syldra and I can feel them, kind of." He answered. "No idea of how far they are, but we can get a general sense of direction." The pokemon made a gesture which Ash knew was the equivalent of shrugging for shoulders-less pokemon. He repeated what the dragon pokemon had said to the other around him, and Damian nodded.

"Then we'd better get Syldra too, and get them far enough so that we can try to use the directions they give us to find the exact location." Damian explained. "It's an old principle, used to pinpoint the exact source of a radio message or other things like that. A radio with good equipment can tell you the direction a message is coming from. If you have two radio a certain distance apart, you can pinpoint two different directions...crossing the lines on a map give you the exact location of the source." He detailed out the process. "We can do the same with Aysen and Syldra, I think."

"All right." Ash nodded. "I'll go ask Misty to help us then." He shivered involuntarily when he said so. Misty had not taken well the news that she was one of the nine, in fact isolating herself in her room inside his house for the last few days, away from them all. He had tried several time to go to talk to her, but she had locked the door, and did not answer when he knocked. He had elected to give her some peace and not use the keys he had that could easily have let him in. But now there was no time to wait, he had to talk with her, they had to get moving.

_______________________________

As Ash walked away from them toward the house, the rest of them looked around at each other, wondering what to do now, since they could not work on the map until Ash, Misty and Syldra joined them, which would, knowing the first two, take some time. Damian smiled, holding Elayne tightly, and decided that he might as well put out the parts of the prophecies that he knew for them all to see. The first one detailed the events that were to take place before the challenge, the four signs.

[quote]

And you shall know that the time of challenge come again when the signs are fulfilled.

The Island of Renewal shall be shattered by one who never knew the womb.

In a storm of power the three shall rise, but the child, the fourth and the summoner shall bring balance to a world endangered.

In a final test of friendship the child will rise, his true dream fulfilled and his identity revealed.

And the one who search will leave, that his mission can be fulfilled.[/quote]

"Any idea what that means?" Richie asked. Damian nodded once, and started to explain.

"The Island of Renewal is probably New Island, not far from Cinnabar. It was destroyed in a freak storm a while ago - a few months over two years -, so that's probably what this is about." Damian explained, conveniently forgetting to mention the Mewtwo project, which he of course knew about, but certainly could not mention to them for now. 

"And the three that rise...Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres?" Melody asked, looking at the third line.

"Good, very good. Yeah, that line refer to what Ash, you and Lugia did in the Shamuti islands." Damian nodded, pleasantly surprised that the young woman had pieced it together almost instantly. Even after hearing the story from his sister, it had taken him a while to match it with the fragment of prophecy, which had confirmed to him who the summoner and child where.

"The next one is obvious." Richie added. "Ash is the child, he rose to the rank of pokemon master a few months ago, fulfilling his dreams, and to do that he had to face his best friend in battle." The young man's voice was as bleak as ever.

"So only the next one remains." Elayne looked at it curiously. "I don't get that one though."

"Neither do I." Damian lied, as he knew perfectly well what the line meant, but certainly was not going to reveal it to her yet. Everywhere else in the prophecy, the one who search was called the seeker, and the reference to leaving clearly meant the seeker had to die to complete his mission. Not something he wanted Elayne to know, at least not yet. She didn't deserve the pain it would cause her to learn it too early. "There's that part too."

[quote]

Nine warriors there shall be, the nine powers and mankind defended, as ever they were.

And to bring the power to them, three more, summoner and seeker and neverborn.

One to death sworn, condemned from the dawn of time

Another seeking the end, shaping his own path in rage and redemption, yet only able to choose the one path.

His life condemn them, his death save them.[/quote]

"The beginning is obvious. The nine, and the three helpers." Damian pointed out. "The rest only seems to mean one of the twelve is going to die for sure, and that there's another who can either die to allow the others to live, or live and let the other dies. Might be somethign else entirely though." He explained, and t he others nodded, as they apparently did not have a better explanation. Damian smiled, avoiding again to mention that he at least knew very well who was to death sworn.

[quote]

A flower of blood spread across the land.

A rising sun washes the darkness. 

The hand of fate claims a soul already lost, blood calling to blood. 

The footsteps of destiny are heard. 

When the white cloak fall on the land again, fates will wage war.[/quote]

"I think I get that one." Elayne smiled. A flower of blood spreading across the land, that would have to be the Lotus invasion..." She left it hanging, though Damian smiled, admitting to himself that she had understood the part faster than him.

"And the rising sun washing the darkness is obvious." Melody completed. "That's the Hoshoans kicking them out."

"I'm not too sure I get the one after that, though..." Richie said.

"Blood calling to blood..." Melody whispered, as if she was trying to puzzle it out.

"Maybe it's blood like in, I don't know, families and that?" Elayne asked suddenly, her eyes shining.

"And then...Gary and May you think?" Damian asked her, this time genuinely pleased by the fact that someone had solved a part he had never managed to understand himself. "It would make sense..."

"And the part about the footsteps of destiny means that the next challenge is soon." Richie added.

"And I'm pretty sure the white cloak means winter and snow. That means the next fight will be something like next winter." He smiled, knowing that the puzzle was, for the most part, dealt with - the puzzle of these few parts he had, anyway. There were a few others, and he dug through his pack to find them.

________________________________

Ash slowly knocked at Misty's door, fully expecting to get no answer, and astonished as the door slowly opened, revealing Misty's face, the face of someone who had wept, with a wild look of fear in her eyes. She looked at him, and literally pulled him inside, closing the door as she did so.

"Misty...what's wrong?" He asked her softly, putting his hands on her slowly shaking shoulders, holding her, trying to make her feel safe.

"I...I just don't know Ash...I don't think I'll be able to do it right...being one of the nine..." she shook slowly as she said so, moving closer to him, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders in a loving embrace.

"You'll do just fine Misty...they wouldn't have picked you if you weren't right for the job, uh?" He smiled, bringing her closer to him, feeling her warmth, her perfumed scent feeling his nose, his eyes locked with hers, loosing themselves in the sea of wonder they were. A slow smile crept on her face.

"So, if you're the chosen one then you'll do the job right, uh? What was all that talk about being the frozen one last year? And feeling better if you had been given another name?" She punched him playfully. Ash smiled, remembering the events.

"Well, I guess I'm older and wiser now...And I realized that I did it, after all. I had some help but I did it." He smiled at her.

"Older, yes, but wiser is debatable." Misty grinned, and Ash sighed in relief. Apparently, no matter how he had done it, he had managed to get her to stop thinking about the dark ideas that had been running through her mind. 

"I see you're feeling better." He grinned back, still holding her tightly as she wrapped her own arms tightly around him.

"Yeah...I guess you're right...they wouldn't have picked me if I wasn't the best choice." She smiled, and mover her head closer to his, letting their lips meet in a soft kiss. For a while they simply stood there, letting the world vanish from their mind and instead simply resting in the warmth and safety of their feelings.

"Was there something else?" Misty finally asked, her eyes soft and loving, all traces of panic gone from them.

"Actually, yes." Ash answered, remembering his reason for being there in the first place. "We need the help of Syldra to find where we are supposed to go." He told her, still holding her close. She nodded slowly, and he released her from his grip, still putting his right arm around her shoulders as they walked together outside to join their friends, explaining her Damian's idea as they did so.

The four of them were still sitting down in the street, the pokemon playing around them, reading from a sheet of paper. The words themselves seemed old, though the sheet of paper had been printed out recently, probably a copy of the part of the prophecies they had available, made by Damian, he realized.

Ash took a closer look at the part they seemed to be working on at that time, wondering what it was about, trying to decipher it.

[quote]

The blood of the oracle bring down his own blood, a lost soul destroyed by a price too high

The forgotten path lies in those who once where in a forbidden lair.

Guardian of the child, Guardian of the lady, they point at the truth sought.

Where the flowers drowned the path lies.

To find words long lost, and one who is alone no more.[/quote]

"What does that mean?" Elayne was asking, puzzled, as Ash looked over Damian's shoulder.

"Easy." He smiled, calling upon the knowledge of Tairan. "The forbidden lair is the dragon shrine, and that means that to find the path we had to go there. The truth sought is probably where to go next, and I'm sure the two guardians are Aysen and Syldra. As for the rest, I'd say it points where we're going, and what we'll find there." He told them, 

"Probably part of the prophecies and the One who stood alone." Damian explained. "That's one of the nine, the One who stood alone." Ash nodded, wondering who he was, and wondering why he felt as if he should know the answer.

"Guess now we should do that trick you suggested Damian." Misty smiled. "Ash, could you ask Celes to give me a lift to that lake where we met?" She asked, smiling and pointing up north. "I don't think Aysen will want to move anymore than he have to, and I'd say the distance between the two is enough for us to pinpoint where we should go next." She said, and Ash turned his head toward Celes, who nodded.

"No problem Misty, go ahead!" He grinned, and she walked toward the bird pokemon, taking her place on the back of the great creature as she extended her wings to take off.

As Misty went away, Ash elected to walk to the south of the town, knowing that the further apart they would be, the more accurate the measurement would be, and the easier it would be to find where they would be traveling now.

He soon reached the shores of Pallet, the beach where the landing had taken place, disfigured by the chaotic dance of war that had erupted there. Here and there, the burned remnants of a tank or landing ship reminded him that the war had ended only recently, and that the Lotus troops that had tried to flee back here had for the most part been butchered by the Hoshoan air force.

"All right Aysen. Why don't you show me now?" he asked, and the pokemon slowly started looking around, his eyes focusing as a thing blue beam erupted from his horn, going northwest. Picking up his compass and looking at it, Ash carefully noted down the exact angle, knowing how important it would be, and walked back in the town to rejoin his friend.

Soon after he arrived, Misty returned, and after a brief hug, they compared the results they had both obtained. Tracing the lines on the map, they crossed over a town all of them knew, and a town that made perfect sense in regard with what the prophecies said. 

"Looks like we're going to Saffron now." Damian smiled

Chapter 2 : Soul Scream

Far, far from Kanto and Jotho, the wind tore at the basis of a great crater, one that had never seen the foot of man since the dawn of time - until that very moment. A small cave, close to the forest, was all that could be remarked about the landscape. But what was truly remarkable was the green light that emanated from the cave so often.

The reflections did not stay in Aimée's mind for long, as she turned her attention back toward her mistress, floating gently in the cave, looking at the two humans that were there, a young man and a young woman. Aimée took a careful look at them both. The young man was sleeping, recovering from the wound in his chest that his mistress had healed, his brown hair all around his head. The medallion he had worn was left close to him, as were there two blades he had carried.

The young woman, Aimée did not understand, having no idea how she had come to arrive there, when only the young man had been with her mistress and her when they had left the stream of time. As the world had become blurred around them, the young man had seemed to blur as well, the woman appearing.

She had long, jet black hair and a delicate figure, small almond-shaped brown eyes in the middle of her pale face. Yet her built would leave no doubt to anyone seeing her that she was a warrior, tested and true, one who had traveled the land. The other noticeable thing about the young woman was, of course, that she had been totally naked when she had appeared, and that they had found no clothes for her yet. Though, of course, it didn't matter to Aimée exactly, as her interest, weak as it was, was in men. Still, she was certainly conscious that they would have to find the young woman some clothes before the two of them woke up.

Turning, she looked at the pokeball gathered at the feet of the young man's bed, five of them, and an empty one. She released the pokemon, and waited for her mistress to instruct them in what they were to do, knowing it was not her task to do so.

Thinking there was not much for her to do, she walked outside the cave, looking at the rising sun, wondering at the beauty of the place, the ring of forest and the great central lake, so much like the crater that had seen her birth, in Johto, except for the presence of the crashed airplane in the middle.

For a brief moment she stopped the flow of time, a brief moment that represented, for her, a few second, not much less that the best she could manage before having to let go again. Remaining there, everything in the world motionless around her, she marveled in the perfection of the beautiful sunrise.

Without being called, Song appeared from her pokeball, called out without a sound, without a gesture. Her fiery red mane glistened over her dark coat as she moved closer to her trainer, her sister.

She had no idea why her mistress had exerted herself so, tapping her utter limits, first in warping the flow of time, then in healing the wounds of the young man they had pulled out of the endless river.

"Why Song? Do you know why?" She asked softly, her voice barely a whisper. The rapidash did not answer, but then she rarely did. Smiling, Aimée turned back inside, not really watching the sunset anymore, instead hearing a call deep inside her soul.

"Yes mistress?" She asked, facing the strange being. Her mind seemed to numb for a second as the mind of her mistress, nearly limitless, almost that of a god, touched it.

She listened, understanding the instructions, setting herself to watch over the two, knowing that if it came that one of them woke up, she would have to exert her powers to their utter limit to hold things at bay until her mistress could return.

_______________________________

The sun had not yet risen over Kanto, and the darkness covered Pallet still, as Richie watched again, awakened by a dark feeling from his sleep. From what sleep there had been for him, anyway.

Voices in the night seemed to call to him, a darkness deeper than even the light-less darkness of the deep night. Again, the same nightmarish vision in his eyes as he held his hand in front of his face. 

The same vision that greeted him whenever he woke up, the same vision that awaited him as soon as his eyes opened from dreamless sleep. Blood. Dark blood, covering his hands and arms, dark blood he knew was in his eyes as well, flowing from his mouth, from every part of his body. Dark blood that yet could not be his, as there was no weakening, only the palling of his skin.

Washing his arms in the sink of the nearby bathroom, he again wondered if there was a way to end it, to stop the darkness that was taking over his soul.

"The only way to escape is to make the vision real..." A voice seemed to say, in the depths of his mind, a voice that came from the darkness, or maybe from his own soul. A voice of madness, maybe, or of sanity, he could not tell. 

But as it was, the only voice that offered him any possibilities of escaping the visions that stole his sleep, destroyed him. The only path out of a madness, even if it might be leading to another, deeper madness. Again, he wondered if ending it all was the best path, as he had often done in the past. Madness or sanity, he did not know. All that he knew was that it would be release.

Slowly, he went to the kitchen, taking a knife with him, slowly applying it to his wrist, over the veins. A wave of pain shot through his body as he brutally slit his wrist open, watching as the blood flowed from it, covering his wrist, his forearm. Splashing to cover his eyes, his mouth. Stinging pain appeared there, pain like none he had ever known, and without looking in the mirror, he knew blood was flowing there, as it was now flowing from both wrists.

But yet, even with his blood leaving him, there was no weakeing, and as the trickling flow died, he saw that for each drop of blood that left it, a drop of inky darkness flowed in him. Desperately, he reached for the switch, lighting the room, but the darkness that was flowing in him did not vanish. Indeed, it was no darkness, but rather a being of utter nothingness, that absorbed even light, that was slowly turning him in a similar darkness.

"Your death is my beginning." The voice seemed to say, as Richie screamed, the shattered dredges of his soul gathering for one last sound of utter panic as they were torn from him, cast back in the depth of his mind. The darkness now seemed to control his action, flexing muscles even when Richie tried to fight, to avoid doing so.

"Welcome in the world of the lifeless." The voice rang through him again, mocking, devastating, a laugh that seemed to pierce at Richie's soul like a thousand knife, a pain more intense than the one of stabbing himself, a pain that he wished he could escape.

He watched from his own eyes, helpless as his body pushed the bathroom door out of the way, walking silently through the house, opening the main door, and walking out without a sound. For a brief moment, he prayed that his friends would wake and kill him before he could be taken too far, but he knew the hope was futile, they were all resting for the long trek that would start the next day.

As the beast he was becoming ran in the hill, Richie tried to scream one last time, a scream that never came, the world vanishing slowly from his sight as he fell in a never-ending, nightmare-filled slumber.

_______________________________________

"Have you found anything, any traces?" Ash asked, his mind strangely blank, instead of panic-filled.

"No...no blood, no sign of violence, no traces...it's almost like Richie was never there in the first place, or that he left without us wanting to know where he was going." Misty told him, and Ash shook his head, completely confused by the strange disappearance of his friend.

"What we can tell is that he wasn't kidnapped, we know for a fact no one got in." Kyle pointed out calmly. "He'll come back when he can, I'm sure he had a good reason to leave." He added. "In the meantime, we need to go play our own part." 

"He's right." Damian nodded. "We really have to get to Saffron soon. We have seven of the nine to find, and not much time to do so."

"Yeah but..." Ash could not come up with an argument why they should wait for Richie instead. He had traveled alone often, knew how to take care of himself, and there was no evidence that he had not left of his own free will other than him not telling them, which could simply means he had had to leave in a hurry, without time to wake them up or write a word. 

Still, Richie was his friend and he felt guilty about not taking more time to look for him, not trying to find him, as he felt betrayed that Richie had left without a word.

"We need to plan how to get there...the Mount moon tunnels are closed, and so is the Viridian pass, and obviously the Vermilion tunnel." Elayne pointed out, pointing out on the map that damages in the war had caused all the three major roads between the valley of Viridian and eastern Kanto to be closed for repairs for the last few months.

"Right, that mean crossing the mountains. There are enough small paths and valleys to do that, but it won't be easy, without a map especially." Kyle confirmed, fidgeting.

"We could take a car...most of the paths can be used by cars." Damian said, before hitting his forehead.

"Ok, don't mention it, I know the last suggestion was stupid. None of us have a driver license."

"Bikes then?" Misty suggested, smiling at Ash, and the young man remembered their first meeting, wondering how the destruction of his bikes could have led to them being hopelessly in love with each other.

"Wouldn't be that good of an idea on mountain terrain...it would slow us down more than speed us up." Elayne objected, and Ash nodded, even though he did not like having to go against Misty.

"What then?" Damian dropped the question, and they all stopped to think for a moment.

"Maybe we could go see Giovanni in Viridian? He might be able to help us..." Elayne suggested, and they all agreed.

"Let's get your things people, we need to go to Viridian!" Ash told them, wanting for things to get moving now that that planning was done, then ran outside, the others following. He had already gathered all his stuff in his backpack the day before, and simply snatched it as he left the house.

Walking, it still took them a few days to make it from Pallet to Viridian as they stayed on the main roads, avoiding the dangerous shortcuts Ash had been forced to take back when he had first traveled the road. The other reason why the delay was greater was of course that the first time he had followed the path, Ash had been on Misty's bike rather than walking for a long while.

As soon as they reached Viridian, they raced to the Gym to get an appointment with Giovanni, hoping he would be able to help them somehow, perhaps giving them the idea they needed to be able to do what they had to.

The ex-leader of Team Rocket, who also just so happened to be the father of two of them, seemed rather happy to see them. Along with him in his office were two familiar figures, Jessie and James, apparently waiting for him to instruct them in some mission, or else already having been instructed without having the time to leave before they arrived.

The problem was easy to explain, the situation known to all, but it did not make the solution any easier to find. It was a puzzling problem, what to do to gain the means of transportation they needed.

"They could use our Meowth balloon." James suggested, his smile indicating that he was joking, but to Ash's dismay, a smile that Damian missed completely.

"Because even with what you guys did, chances are the police would still destroy on sight your balloon." He replied. "Or most other Rocket vehicles. We need something more...I don't know. Something that can get everywhere with relative ease...you can't land an helicopter or balloon in the middle of a forest." He pointed out.

"That's true." Giovanni admitted. "But then, I guess I can't help much. Maybe Lance could help, the league has a lot of pokemon, maybe it would help."

It barely took a few minutes, half an hour perhaps to get from Viridian to Indigo, flying in Giovanni's personal helicopter, piloted by a young woman with yellow hair and a deadly look in her eyes. Giovanni had presented her to them as Domino.

Within moments, they had clearance to land on the small helicopter pad at the top of the League headquarters building. Lance was waiting for them, his long dark cloak moving in the wind of the great propeller of the helicopter.

"Giovanni, Misty, Damian, Ash, Elayne, Kyle." He greeted them, his face curious. "What are you all doing here?" He did seem happy to see them by his voice, though his greeting had somehow failed to show that.

"We need your help." Giovanni certainly did not try to bring it slowly.

"I sort of figured that. What can I do for you?" He smiled at them, and Ash smiled back at his father.

"I'll cut it short." Damian explained, and Ash barely resisted making a comment about it being a first, or an exception event at least. "It's about the prophecies of twilight. You know about them, I assume." He smiled.

"Of course." Lance replied quickly.

"Very well. Most of us here - Misty, Melody, Ash and I - are involved in one way or another in the prophecies." Damian did, in fact, cut things short.

"I had figured it out, at least for Ash and Misty." Lance answered, his eyes showing some annoyance as he waited for clearer explanations of what they were up to.

"Well, simply put, we need a mean of transportation that can move us around quickly from one place to another, but without having to rely too much on the known roads and all that." 

Lance's eyes turned from curious to thoughtful, as he considered the various options that they had.

"Flying pokemon would be a good choice for you all, but that's not something you have a lot of, and the league doesn't have much of these for now either."

Ash nodded, as it was true that the only flying pokemon they had were Celes and Deathwing. Without other flying pokemon, attempting to move around in the sky would be rather futile.

"Then I guess you'll have to move on the land for now while I try to find some flying pokemon. That would mean Rapidash for now. And thanks to you, we have a herd of Rapidash just waiting to be used, and they already know you all."

Ash smiled, the solution was obvious, of course, as the herd of Rapidash they had ridden from the Safari Zone to Fuchsia was now in league care, and would definitely provide good, trustworthy mounts since they already trusted them. And Ash himself had Sora, the lead Rapidash of the herd, still with him.

It took only a few minutes, perhaps fifteen, to reach the fenced area where the fiery horses ran, their great burning mane flowing in the chilly wind of winter. The small group slowly walked in the pen, Ash calling out Sora as an additional safety measure. Soon enough the rapidash had gathered around the head of their herd, and were listening as she ordered them.

Barely a moment later, the rapidash who had carried them to Fuchsia came forward, slowly looking at and smelling each of them, until they all had one close to them.

"Will that be enough?" Lance asked, smiling. "Or is there anything else?"

"There's nothing else." Ash smiled. "Thank you dad. Now I guess we could as well take some time to relax and chat..." He smiled, knowing they had not been very polite to his father, and that leaving without taking some time to talk would really not be a thing to do.

They spent some time together in the leagues headquarters, all of them talking about what they had to do now, the reconstruction and the surprising victory in the war, about how the Lotus headquarter had been moved as they had all known it would. 

Chapter 3 : Predator

A new morning dawned bright and clear over the plateau that held the capital of Kanto and Ash stretched as he woke up in the room his father had had readied for him. His friends slept in nearby room, and Ash soon walked out of his to join his friend, his katana hanging from his belt, carrying his cloak under his arm, knowing there was no point other than look to putting it on before they left the building. Misty had not put her cloak on either, he could see that as he joined her outside.

"There you are Ash!" Damian smiled as the young man woke up.

"No, I'm elsewhere." Ash replied half-sarcastically, grinning at the young man who seemed taken aback, then started to laugh.

"I guess I was doing it again, uh?" He said sheepishly.

"I'd say so, yes." Ash grinned.

"Oh, well. Anyway, why don't you hurry up eating, I think we should leave soon." Damian said, pushing a plate with bacon and eggs, as well as a glass of orange juice, toward Ash who rapidly ate, noticing in passing that the food was quite well prepared.

It took him a short time to clear his plate, soon enough they were waving goodbye at Lance and climbing on their great Rapidash. Knowing the pokemon would spend long stretches of time out of the pokeball, Ash had asked them their name the night before. His, of course, was Sora, while Misty was mounted on Atalante, a strangely named rapidash with an ever-so-slightly bluish hue. Damian rode on Tandar, a great stallion, while Isen was the name of the mount of Elayne, a young rapidash that was barely in adulthood. Kyle was riding on a old, wise-looking mare, Shintara by name, and Melody a pokemon that appeared in all points to be Shintara's twin, Mei.

The hooves of the beasts repeatedly struck the ground in a beating noise as the five rapidash went west, not galloping to spare their energy, but still certainly not going too slowly. Ash held the rein of the great fire horse loosely, knowing Sora could be trusted not to let him fall, only using the saddle and reins because of customs. 

The speed of their mount let them reach Viridian in mid afternoon, while on foot the trail would usually have taken them three days to complete. Ash smiled as he entered the city, making it to the pokemon center. It was no hard choice to stay there rather than continue, as they would be able to rest much more in the pokemon center than camping in the middle of frosty Viridian forest. Thus, the time they would loose by not riding for the afternoon would be caught back up because they would be able to go further the next day, riding on the forest trails.

The night was calm and peaceful, and none of them had trouble finding sleep, except for that one moment around midnight where a cry, a scream, almost of terror had been heard, but beyond that, there had been nothing. They woke up refreshed and ready to leave the next morning. On their way out of town, they ran in two familiar figures, also apparently leaving. 

"Hey! What are you guys doing?" Ash asked Jessie and James, his two old nemesis.

"Oh, hi twerp!" James smiled as he turned to look at them. "Planning to steal your pikachu, of course." He winked and grinned. Ash smiled back, still amazed at the change in both of the redeemed pokemon thief, far less grouchy and far less hating that they had once been. There still remained a certain gap between their two groups of course, the remnants of a hundred thundershocks and as many traps, but still they had changed a lot.

"Yup, and you should prepare for trouble." Jessie grinned too, though they did not continue their motto, which was fine as far as Ash was concerned, as they were words he had heard far too often in his life already.

"Oh. Why?" Damian asked curiously, his eyes reflecting his surprise - a surprise that they all felt, somehow.

"Last night. A woman was strangled in her house, and all her pokemon were...I don't know how to explain it. They are alive, but not. As if something here was feeding on their souls. A whole litter of Meowth kitten..." James shuddered, and looked at them.

"Be careful. For some reason, the boss think that that thing might be after you, at least I think he does. He just seemed far too worried about you and he told us to tell you about this the second we saw you, if we did."

"That's...odd..." Damian said, his eyes scanning around warily, as if he was trying to find whoever had done it, near them.

"He's near." The voice was not Damian's, but Kyle's. "I can feel him...yet not. It's like a spot of darkness that light won't wash away...I can't see inside him, I can only feel two things, two feelings...he's radiating them all around him...hate, and hunger. Hate for us, and hunger for more living souls." His voice was filled with utter horror, and Ash just stared at the young man, his mind shrieking in panic at the idea.

"We'd better get out of Viridian now, and get our running...." Misty's voice, though she attempted to keep it controlled, was filled with panic. Ash looked at her, trying to reassure her, knowing he himself need the reassurance. 

"I think we'll go with you for a part of the way at least." Jessie said, calling out a Rapidash of her own. Ash wondered for a moment where she had obtained it, then pushed the thought aside.

"Jessie, I have no rapidash." James pointed out, but before they could back down on the plan, Ash called out Celes, and though the bird pokemon was reluctant to carry an ex-enemy like that, she quickly let herself be convinced.

A moment later, they were all galloping out of town, except of course James who flew overhead, faster than any of the Rapidash could race. Swift wind blew in their faces, the cool winter air biting at their eyes as the city slowly disappeared behind them, the evergreens and leafless maples of Viridian forest shading their way as they went further in the woods.

They raced further within the forest, stopping that night near a small lake, one that was fed by forest brooks. Kyle no longer felt the sense of hatred anywhere close, feeling it vaguely still back in Viridian, so they elected to stop.

Misty and Elayne, as well as Kyle and Melody, went to the shore and gathered there, but Ash stayed behind, as there was something he wanted to talk about with Damian, concerning the prophecies.

"Damian, there's something about the prophecies..." He left it hanging.

"What is it?" The young man asked, his eyes curious.

"The part you showed us two days ago in Indigo about the one who search..."

"Yeah?" This time there was a sliver of fear as well as the curiosity, and Ash instantly knew he was right, though he still asked, wanting to be sure beyond all doubt.

"The one who search is the seeker, right?" He asked, and Damian nodded once.

"Yeah, I didn' t think you'd figure it out - your or anyone else in the group." He admitted.

"So you're going to leave - which is to say, you're going to die soon." He pointed oiut.

"Yes. I'm just not telling Misty and Elayne yet." Damian sighed sadly, and Ash put an hand on his shoulder. The suspicions that that part of the prophecies might be about it had been bad enough, to see them confirmed was even worst.

"I can see why..." He said slowly. While he liked the young man as a friend, Misty and Elayne both cared for Damian much more than he did, one because he was her boyfriend, the other because he was her twin brother.

"That's good. Now, please don't talk about it to Misty and Elayne...I'll tell them when I am ready." The young man told him, and Ash nodded. It wasn't his secret to tell, he wouldn't mention it to either of their girlfriends.

Before they had any more time to talk, Misty and Elayne returned from the side of the lake, and they had no choice but to stop talking about it, so that the two women would not suspect anything.

"What were you talking about..." Misty asked, looking at the two of them curiously, and Ash had to bite his tongue to avoid telling her, something he was not used to doing. Damian threw him a sorry glance, that of someone who knew he was asking for a lot, but saw no choices other than doing so.

"Oh...a few odd things in the prophecies..." Damian replied evasively. "Nothing important." Ash nearly choked as the outright lie came out of his friend's mouth, but managed to control himself and not to reveal the truth.

"Ah." Misty shrugged, her mind obviously on something else. "It's almost evening...we'd better get ready for spending the night here, and set some kind of schedule to have one of us standing guard at all time..." She explained, and Ash nodded. Seeing as there was something, some dark creature after them, leaving some form of guard at night would only make sense.

They quickly arranged the schedule, Ash getting the first turn at keeping the camp safe for an hour and a half. Jessie and James had left them already a few hours earlier, after returning Celes to them. They had not said what they were going to do, only that they had a mission to complete, on orders from Giovanni.

"Oh, I was thinking that maybe instead of just randomly starting on that track to the east of here that we heard about we might want to ask your friend Brock for some help...he did a lot of work in these mountains during the war, so he's bound to know a few tracks that we don't know about." Elayne suggested, her eyes scanning the area around them still, as if she did not trust Kyle's words that the strange hunter was far from them.

"You want to trust Brock anywhere near a map? Ash is bad enough by himself, but Brock is woefully inept with maps." Misty protested, grinning.

"Hey!" Ash protested, then thought about it for a moment." Though I agree about Brock." He smiled.

"Even with that, I think we'd better chance it." Damian said, laughing, and Ash grinned.

"Oh, well. If we get lost I'll be able to blame you all." Misty grinned, looking at them half-suspiciously.

They ate some sandwiches they had packed before leaving Viridian, and went to their sleeping bag, except Ash, who instead drew his sword and sat down close to Misty, sword in hand and Raiken close to him. Misty was lying on the ground, covered in her clothe, a pillow she had carried with her being the only thing between her and the ground.

"Maybe you'd better call out Fenrir...Houndoom know the night like no other pokemon." The pikachu suggested, and Ash nodded, smiling at his friend as he called out the great wolf-like creature.

The light of the fire slowly dimmed to only a dying glow that barely lighted the area around them., Ash glanced around uneasily, fidgeting with the idea of calling out more pokemon, but the truth was that they needed rest. Still, he did call out Esper, knowing that the psychic pokemon would probably be able to sense the creature if it came too close.

Each second of the night seemed like a thousand hour in the dim light of the moon filtering through t he branches and the equally dim light of the dying embers of the fire. It seemed as if each second was lasting a little longer than the last, a little shorter than the next.

Watching around carefully, Ash waited, tense. There were some sounds in the middle of the night, but quick investigation from Fenrir showed it was only a small group of vulpix moving through the bushes. Ash for a brief moment considered catching one, then rejected the idea. Too much effort, too little use with Fenrir and Deathwing already in his team.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Half an hour went by without a sign of trouble, and then another ten minutes. Ash watched around warily, dodging sleep. Another ten minutes, only fifty left to his turn as a guard. An hand touched his shoulder, he whirled. There had been no sound. Kyle was there, his eyes glowing. 

"Call back Esper Ash. I don't really need to sleep, I can use my psychic powers to keep going for a while without sleep." He said. "You should get some sleep, too. I'll wake you up if I think there's trouble." The young psychic added.

Ash nodded gratefully, he fell no need to stay awake. Slipping under his cloak, he moved closer to Misty who slept fitfully under her, as if nightmares plagued her sleep. He gently caressed her cheek, kissing her forehead then let himself drift asleep.

He was roughly awakened a few hours later by a hand shaking his shoulders. At least, according to the position of the moon, it was a few hours later, as Ash had no idea how long he had been sleeping, be it a second or a lifetime.

"He's in the forest now. Still far, but coming closer. I thought I'd warn you." Kyle's words immediately banished any thought of sleep from his drowsy mind, fully waking him.

He hesitated, looking at the others sleeping. He would not wake them up, not now, not yet. They needed the sleep too much for him to do that. The monster was far from catching up to them, they had the time to spend on their own need, at least a little time.

"Wait. He stopped moving. He's still a long way off, I don't get why he'd stop moving like that." Kyle sounded puzzled, and Ash had to admit the mysterious change in the actions of their opponent was rather puzzling. "There's something else with him now. It's a presence…I've almost never seen something like that before…It's so powerful…" he whispered, and Ash wondered what he was talking about. There seemed to be light to the south, not the light of the day, certainly, but rather an pulsating light, the light of a flame.

"Is the forest on fire or what?" Kyle asked suspiciously, eyeing the same glow that had drawn Ash's attention.

"I don't know…." Ash replied slowly, hardly thinking that a forest could have caught on fire in the middle of the night, in winter. "I think it's too cold for that…."

"Yeah, but what else could it be?" Kyle shot back.

"I don't know…I really don't…" Ash tried desperately to think on what it could be, realizing he would not succeed. "What of the thing?" Ash asked, his face serious again. Even if whatever it was had made him stop, there was no reason for them to believe that the creature would not go back on track the instant he managed to remove the obstacle, whatever it was.

"Not moving…get some more sleep…I'll tell you if he gets moving toward us again." Kyle told him, and Ash wrapped his cloak around himself again, lying down on the cold, hard ground, grateful that the cloak at least blocked off the chill of both ground and air.

By next morning, when Ash woke up, the beat had not moved again, or so Kyle told them. There had been no traces of whatever had stopped the creature in the night, and Ash certainly was not going to go our of his way to find what could have done that, especially since it meant getting closer to the creature.

They rose north all of that day, the creature barely moving in pursuit, then that night it started coming closer again, yet the advance they had taken during the day and night allowed them to rest safely, the monstrosity still out of range by the next sunrise. Two more days, and they were in Pewter, a city that seemed to be celebrating.

Bright lights hung from posts all around the town, banners and flag and colorful drape in every windows. Men and women sang and danced in the streets to a rhythm Ash had never heard of his entire life, a rhythm that seemed both cheerful and filled with a deep hidden meaning.

The Gym, in the middle of the town, was the heart of the celebration, people dancing in the great stone-paved place in front of it. Stopping one of the dancers, Misty asked her what was happening, and what they were celebrating.

"Excuse me?" She said politely, grabbing the attention of the woman. "Could you please tell my friend and I what you are celebrating?" She asked.

"Two things!" The young woman looked at them happily. "It's the annual blackrock festival to remember the foundation of the town, and our gym leader just announced he was getting married soon."

"Brock will be getting married?" Ash asked in surprise, his own words repeated my Misty, his expression mirrored by hers.

"Yeah! Now, why don't you join us for a dance?" The young woman smiled, offering them her hand.

"Sorry, we have to go see Brock. He's a friend, so we want to congratulate him."

"Of course, of course!" The woman smiled, moving out of the way as they rode closer to the gym, recalling their rapidash to walk for the remnants of the way.

Walking in the gym, they found the door open, Suzie and Brock near the entrance, holding hand, smiling at each other's.

"Ash!" Brock grinned as he turned toward them, "Misty! Have you heard?" He asked them, smiling.

"Yeah!" Ash smiled. "That's great news! Congratulations, both of you!" He grinned, forgetting for a brief moment about the beast that had hunted them in the woods of Viridian.

"I'm so happy for the two of you!" Misty grinned.

"Thank you!" Suzie smiled. "After all we went through together during the war and all…I wanted us two to become more than just lovers." She had an happy smile on her face, the one of someone who was perfectly content and had everything she could ever want.

They talked about the wedding for a long time that night while outside the celebrations went on. They knew that the chances that they would be in Pewter in time for the wedding were low at best, and somehow it felt like cheating, like they were betraying Brock. Only Kyle did not take part in the talking, standing at the door of the gym, watching to the south. Ash had no problems figuring what he was up to, the beast still stalked them. Too far yet for him to do anything, he would probably however reach Pewter, and that time they would have to make sure Brock was warned. 

It was not until the next morning, waking up fresh and well-rested that they got a chance to tell Brock of the events in Viridian, and warned him to be careful. Then, they got to the true reason of their visit, their need for maps of the mountains below Pewter. Ash felt a certain guilt at the idea that he was visiting his friend not out of friendship, but out of need, yet there was nothing else to do. They had to obtain the map, they had to leave soon.

"Of course I can help you!" He smiled as soon as they revealed their problem to him. "Though I'm not sure Ash and Misty will trust me near a map." He grinned at the two of them, a twinkle of happiness in his eyes that Ash had never seen there.

"As much as I'd prefer to ask someone else, you're the only one we could think of." Misty shot back, a mischievous twinkle in her own eyes, though also a sliver of fear remaining from what they had been discussion before, the soul-draining creature that stalked their every step.

"Don't worry. I won't get you lost..." Brock said, though he was interrupted by Ash before he could finish.

"Isn't that what you almost always said before getting us lost Brock?" He retaliated teasingly. Brock was silent, only a smile on his lips as he took the map Damian offered him, soon drawing lines in the mountains near the forest of Viridian.

"There you are." He said after a short while. "I'd offer you to stay here for the day, but with that thing after you, I think you'd better leave now." He told them, his eyes serious, handling the map to Damian with a few words.

"I'd give it to Ash or Misty, but they aren't better with maps than I am so..." he grinned at the two of them as they rode away to the southwest, trying to stay as clear from the track of the creature as they could, entering the mountains with the first chance they had.

Chapter 4 : The One who Stood Alone

The mountains south-east of Pewter were dark and foreboding, tall sharp peaks that seemed to pierce the sky, each one taller than the one before, smaller than the next. Stark gray walls covered both sides of the small path they followed, one behind the other, as there was no room for them to even go two in a row.

There had been no traces of the hunter in the last few days, not since they had entered the mountains on the day after leaving Pewter, as he had still been heading toward Pewter, perhaps following their scent in town, perhaps trying simply to deduce where they were going.

If the later was true, the term beast perhaps did not apply, but rather, they were facing a human, albeit one warped, humanity torn from him. Ash prefered to believe they were facing an enemy who was tracking them by scent, but to keep believing such a thing when all the clues they had pointed otherwise was foolish, and something he simply could not manage to do anymore. Had it been an unintelligent beast tracking by scent, it would have been unable to make its way out of Viridian on their trail, would have have been able to find where they were going.

Still, beast or no beast, it took them over a week, eight days to cross from one side of the mountains to the other, riding hard each day, leaving before sunrise and stopping at sunset, a hard pace that took a toll on them all. Even Kyle, using his psychic powers as he could to recover, was hardly getting any better, his eyes now surrounded with black circles from lack of sleep as he stood guard every night. Pewter was far behind, a forgotten sight, and ahead, closer every day, the forest of Celadon and beyond the highlands of Saffron stood waiting.

Walking out of the mountains was a relief for Ash. Even with spring coming, the weather had been cold in the mountains, and the much warmer climate of the forests that one could find in the great valley of the Celadon river was welcome.

They continued riding, four more days on the road endlessly, from sunrise to sunset and sometime beyond, avoiding Celadon entirely, simply making their way past the forest toward the stark cliffs that marked the end of the valley and the beginning of the Saffron Highlands. From there, following the great road from Celadon to Saffron, it took them a mercifully short time to reach their destination, Saffron, and whoever they were to find there.

________________________

Sabrina, as it was, was waiting for them in Saffron, wearing loose clothes rather than the tight one they were used to seeing on her, long blue hair flying in the wind. 

"I thought it was you two I was feeling coming this way." She waved as they entered the city, the only one in Kanto that could actually be defined as a fortified, walled city. Of course, there were no true walls, none of the city of Kanto had them, they had been pulled down and never rebuilt after the invasion that had come from Serland had been repelled over a thousand year before. Yet, the stark cliffs of the Saffron Highlands central plateau that served as a home for Saffron itself were enough of a wall on their own.

Ash waved back, grinning at their friends. The very idea of Sabrina being their friends struck him as odd, the very thought sounding somehow ridiculous as he remembered their first meeting. Yet, at the same time, it sounded true, truer than any idea he ever had before. Sabrina, no matter how much any of them tried to deny it, was their friend, and a good friend at that, thanks perhaps to the effort she had put in the rescue mission.

She had been so alone, so isolated, kept away from the world by her own power until they had met her that to see her now as a young woman that actually cared about other and let her feelings be, if only slightly, was a shock still, as much as he should have become used to it. 

__

One who was alone...wasn't there something like that in the prophecies? His mind idly wondered as they stepped down their Rapidash, recalling them, a flurry of red beam flashing out toward the pokemon.

"What brings you to Saffron?" Sabrina asked with one of her rare smiles.

"Prophecies, that kind of stuff." Damian was the first to reply, and Sabrina nodded, her face becoming serious again within an instant. "We know one of the nine is here, and the oracle too." He got down to the point for once, rather than turning around it for half an hour.

"Yes, I know." She smiled again. "You have to figure it out for yourself, though." She added, looking at them. "I'm sure it shouldn't take you too much time."

The others all seemed dismayed by the prospect of having to figure it out for themselves while Sabrina seemed to know and to be teasing them. No such feeling struck Ash, however, only a small smile at the idea that for once he had been the very first to figure something out.

"Damian, could you list the names of the nine to me again?" He asked, trying to hide his face from Sabrina's whose eyes now rested on him.

"The Child of the Dragon - that's you Ash. The Lady of Mist, that's Misty. The Huntress, the Lost Soul, the One who Stood Alone, the Thunderer, the Son of Storms, The Daughter of Flames and the Mistress of Dreams." Damian listed them all, not even bothering to get any of the numerous texts on the subject he carried in his backpack.

"The One who Stood Alone. What do you know about that one?" He asked, putting an hand over his eyes, thinking very hard."

"Not much. Most of the prophecies were lost, so I only know about what's in the league headquarters or in the Viridian gym were my father put all the books Team Rocket collected...." He lost himself in explanation, until Ash interrupted him again.

"The One who Stood Alone?" He asked again, and Damian's face cleared from thinking about things completely unrelated from their main topic of interest.

"I don't know much...only that she will somehow be saved form a dark path by the child of the dragon. That's all." He finally replied, letting go of his constant blabbering.

"That's pretty much what I needed." He turned slowly, facing Sabrina with a grin. "Looks like you will be leaving Saffron Sabrina." 

Sabrina smiled, looking at them. "That was quicker than I expected." She whispered. "And without even using your own oracles, too. You're quick Ash."

"I can't take the merit that much, I was already thinking about how you used to be all alone and now there just wasn't any denying you were a good friend of us all when we arrived....It just worked too perfectly." He shrugged, grinning at the young psychic.

"I'll get my things. In the meantime, we have a few fragment of the prophecies in the library, some of which aren't in Viridian or Indigo, I'm sure." She smiled again, and Ash looked at her closely, wondering what was wrong. "You might want to look at them." She indicated, pointing at a nearby building, leading them all in, then to a section at the back that seemed restricted in access. A few sheet of papers were on the table in the middle of it, all of them old and yellowed. 

"These are the parts of the prophecies that they don't have in either libraries." She showed them the room around. "Make yourself as comfortable as you need while you read that. There's a kitchen beyond this door with some food if you get hungry, and the bathrooms are there." She finished, pointing at two doors one after the other before heading out.

Ash randomly picked up a sheet, reading quickly from it, finding quickly enough that it detailed the first sign, nothing of interest since it had already come to pass. He browsed through it

__

To save the world, the child fall

Powers unholy making him in stone unyielding.

Tears to wake him, a forgotten power

Memories blown in the wind of remorse

Forgotten past, will it return?

The passage made no sense to Ash, as it seemed to say he had died in the first sign, even though he stood alive there now. Admittedly, the passage could be interpreted to say that he had died, been given a second life, and made to forget, but it was much of a stretch. He tried not to think of it too much, continuing to read, not sharing his strange discovery with anyone.

However, the second sheet he picked was much more interesting, both confirming that they were on the right path, and telling them of the next step to take once they would be done here. He read it avidly, calling Melody and Damian who were simply shuffling through the sheets to look at it with him.

__

Find the path of destiny were the child came into the gift of Mew

To the fortress without wall, tall among the hills and not an hill it lead

When there the child find the one he saved

The path lead next beyond mountains, valleys and rivers, beyond forests and snow

In the land of the wind, a town by the sea.

"I don'T get that one." Ash admited.

"I think I get the first line, at least." Melody said. "I heard a legend about how each of the legendary gave something to mankind when we were created...Mew supposedly gave us ambition, so that we would always try to accomplish something in life."

"Pallet town then. The child is me, and my real ambition in life was to become a pokemon master." He smiled. "That started in Pallet Town."

"Makes sense. Fortress without wall is Saffron, they always call it that because of the cliffs of the plateau." Damian explained, though Ash already had figured out the answer at that point.

"And Sabrina's the one I saved." He nodded rapidly, pointing at the last two line. "I'd say the rest just mean it'll be a long trip."

"And the region of New Bark is often called the land of the wind." Damian completed, a satisfied smile on his lips. "That's where we go next I guess." He grinned, the ease of solving the enigma surprising him.

"I wonder if we'll pick up an oracle, one of the nine, or something else there..."

They did not say anymore, there was no use speculating when they had no clues about what awaited them in New Bark. Instead, Ash picked up more of the prophecies, rapidly browsing through them, trying to find something interesting. There was not much luck to be had, most of the sheet covered events that had already taken place.

Interestingly enough, one of the page held the description the prophecies had of him, and he quickly browsed through it, already knowing he was the child of the dragon, but wanting to know more about the first sign and how he could have died in it.

__

The child of the dragon, son of an ancient line

Born twice in the world, through his owns, through the pokemon

Gatherer of Loyalties, Savior of Souls

Two paths before him, victory and its price, defeat and its reward

Is an eternity of pale shadows better than utter night that may yet pass into day?.

That part made no more sense to Ash, though he elected not to bother the others about it, instead reading it again and again, wondering how it was that he could have been born twice, or born through the will of pokemon for that matter. Some part of the prophecies just did not make sense to him. He pushed aside the sheet, there was nothing on it that he did not know. 

The next one hold more interesting material, the description of the One who Stood alone, to be exact. 

__

The one who stood alone followed a darkened path.

Soul lost in the shadow of an hunger for power

A terrible darkness, about to claim her mind

Her sould saved by the child.

The light of joy prevail against the hunger for power.

This one made sense, much more than the previous one. Sabrina had been following a dark path, letting only her powers and her loneliness guide her, loosing herself. Ash, by bringing Haunter - now Gengar - to her had definitely helped Sabrina snap out of the darkness, and it was Haunter's joke, what he supposed was the light of joy, that had ended her hunger for power and insensibility. It comforted him to obtain some more confirmation about Sabrina being the One who stood alone, as there had been some lingering doubts in his mind.

A small part, blurred out, drew his attention, though not for long. It talked about a child of violence, who would be of the child blood, and of that of someone else. He stared at it for a long while. Danea, Tanya and Lance were his only relative, so it had to be one of them, and judging from the age ranges so far, it might be Tanya. Though of course, maybe he had living relatives he was unaware off, he didn't know much about his father's side of the family.

"Do you think we are done here Damian?" Misty asked him a bit later, when they were done scanning through the sheets, and while the young man was making copies out of each of them with a nearby printer, stacking the copies together and putting them in his backpack.

"I'm not sure...maybe we had to find Sabrina...maybe it's something else too." He shrugged, his voice unsure. "I'd say we're done, I'm just not sure."

"We're done." Ash smiled at them, knowing that whatever parts of the prophecies they had seen so far only mentioned picking up Sabrina and the track in Saffron. 

"Are you sure?" Damian looked at him suspiciously.

"Yeah. The prophecies only mentioned picking up Sabrina and the track here. We're done with both." He answered quickly.

"True. Let's go." 

They all walked out of the library, finding the young psychic waiting outside, a rapidash of her own near her, though there was no telling how she had obtained it, until they asked, which gave them the simple answer - she had had it transferred from Indigo by Lance while they were reading.

"Are you ready to leave? I don't think we have time to loose." she told them, slowly climbing on her pokemon, as she seemed to have not much experience riding.

"True." Damian admitted. "Especially with that thing hunting us." 

"Thing?" Sabrina asked in surprise.

"It feeds on soul...Kyle has been keeping track of it for a while with psychic powers, maybe he can show you." Ash explained quickly, getting the two psychic to glance shortly at each other.

Riding out of town by the west entrance was the only choice, even though they so risked to run in the thing, as otherwise the delays would be counted in weeks. In addition, Kyle told them that he could hardly feel the monster at all, as if he was far north, still near Pewter, which was rather surprising, unless it had found a good place to feed, or else been badly wounded.

As they trotted down the main road that led off the plateau, Sabrina turned back took one last, long look at her hometown which she was now leaving behind. Ash, turning back, looked with her. Saffron had not suffered as much from the war as Pallet, but stil had been damaged.

"I guess they'll have to do without my help..." she said, regretfully, guilt in her voice.

"We all have to learn to fly on our own wings sometime." Ash replied, the philosophical reflection coming from Tairan's mind.

Sabrina smiled, a small, sad smile that contrasted with the one lone tear that rolled down one of her cheeks.

"I guess so..." she whispered softly, not looking at him.

Without any more words, they turned away from Saffron, riding off the plateau and west through the highlands, making their way toward Celadon, and beyond the valley of Viridian, the Silver Mountains, and New Bark ultimately.

Chapter 5 : Danea's Tale

No matter how much he tried, Damian could find sleep that night, a week after leaving Saffron, as they left the Moon Mountains, riding through the forest of Viridian. They had left Pallet over a month ago, and so far they had found one, only one of the others, and were still far away from their next stop, New Bark - at least one more week, to reach the road that led to the Silver Mountains, and from there to go to New Bark. It would take them forever and more to find the nine - and they had no such time. He had to find the prophecies, or...or something that would help him find them, gather them all, as he had been fated to do since the start.

Suddenly, as his dreams stirred, he felt...called. Called out of his sleeping bag. Called out of the clearing. He walked to the edge of the small patch of grass in the middle of the forest, then followed a small forest path that led deep into the woods, to another, much smaller clearing. A single woman was there.

As soon as he saw her, Damian fell to his knees, his head held low, staring at the ground rather than at the divine being in front of him.

"My lady..." he said, as he bowed, his eyes half-closed.

"Oh, Damian...stop that!" She laughed a small, silvery laugh. "You know I don't like formality. I have a name. Use it." she ordered, her smile like a thousand flowers blossoming.

"Of course Enaira. Do you want something of me?" He asked, curious as to why his mistress would find it necessary to intervene directly.

"Nothing...I just wanted to talk with you...you seems to be worried..." She replied, her eyes filled with affection, something no one would have expected to see in the eyes of a Goddess. 

"Well...." He hesitated. "I don't think I'll be able to do it...I still have no idea where to find the full prophecies...and I have no idea where the fight will be, or where to find the nine..." He shuddered, the extent of what he had yet to find scaring him.

"Go to New Bark. You'll find something there." She smiled. "But you already know that, don't you?"

"Not someone?" He asked, glad he had finally learned something from the discussion.

"No. None of the nine are there. You must find one thing you need there. Now go to sleep. I'll wait for you when you return from New Bark." She whispered softly, putting her hand on his head in a gesture of appeasement.

"Can't you transport us there?" He asked, trying to find a way to speed up the quest, desperately hoping she would accept. The advantages of her doing so would be twin, speed in movement, and the fact that they would confuse the creature that was starting to get closer to them again, something that certainly did worry him. Still, at least, with Sabrina in their group now, they had two psychics who could take turn guarding them at night without over-exerting themselves, which was good as Kyle had been on the verge of falling apart.

"No. There are things that must happen on your way there..." She hesitated, as if she was about to say more, then elected not to do so, smiling at him. "You'll see what happen. Now, get some sleep dear one." She vanished in a blur of silver light, her last words lingering on his mind. Sleep would be good, resting would help him thinking more clearly. He walked back to his sleeping bag, and slipped in it, falling asleep.

_____________________

Letting his cloak down on an armchair, Lance looked at his younger sister worriedly, not knowing yet why she had called him over, asking him to come in a hurry. She was weeping, sitting in a couch in the main room, her face in her hands.

"What's wrong Danea?" He asked softly.

"Same thing that's been wrong for the last sixteen years." Her reply was short and to the point, bitter and sad.

Lance sank back in his chair, wringing his hands in frustration. He should have expected it, though in truth he had hoped that she was finally done with those time of despair, and obscure guilt that overcame her from time to time. Ever since that day, fifteen years ago, that day where she had been betrayed, or at least so it had seemed at the time. Lance had later learned the truth, but he did not know if his sister had accepted it.

"Really, that was a stupid question to ask uncle." A voice came out of the doorway, bitter. Lance turned to face Tanya, her silver-white hair loose behind her back, her long black coat still hanging from her shoulders, a black leather collar still on her neck, matching wristbands in place. As always, she wore a tight black shirt with a neckline that was entirely too low as far as Lance was concerned, and tight black pants with matching leather boots. She knew about what had happened, of course.

"What are you doing Tanya?" he asked , eyeing her suspiciously. She held one of her pokeball in hand and seemed ready to fight.

"Well...I tought I could find the man who did that to mommy and...hurt him just a little..." She smiled evilly, her eyes shining with rage.

"Oh, really Tanya...arent' you a little young for that?" He tried to object, knowing as soon as he said it that it was futile and that this argument certainly would not change her mind.

"No. I've seen mum suffering long enough. I'm going to at least make whoever did that suffer as much. I know how to." Her face was set, determined. "What's his name?" She asked again.

"Who?" Lance tried desperately to stall, though he could not come up with a very good idea of how to do so.

"The guy who did that to mom." She was still hard, apparently not fazed at all by Lance's rather pitiful attempt at holding her back.

"You can't do a thing to him Tanya. First because you'd get in trouble with the police and all that. Second off, because he's already dead." He finally blurted out the part of the story that Tanya had never heard.

"Dead? How?" she said, her eyes dark, frustration written in every inches of her body.

"Killed by his own son. Fifteen years or so ago." He replied, not wanting to think a bout the events too much, they were still something painful.

"How do you know?" She sounded suspicious, disbelieving.

"Because I was there. I was out to kill him, but things turned out the wrong way, and he was about to kill me, when his own son killed him..." He explained, avoiding to revealing the names still.

"Oh..." She sighed sadly, looking at him, then at her mother. She went to sit by her, and hugged her tightly.

Lance sighed, relieved. There were things that he had come closer to revealing that he wanted to keep hidden from the young woman for now, things that really needed to be kept under wrap.

_____________________________________

The seven Rapidash raced swifly on the downhill path of Route twenty-six, heading southward as fast as they could. The sun was already descending, a burning orb of fire low on the horizon. All of them were busy thinking about one thing or another, and they nearly missed the small forest temple. It was only Melody who saw it at first, reining in suddenly. They all stopped and went closer to the shrine, exploring it for a brief while. As it seemed safe and night was coming, it was no complex choice to elect to stay there for the night, and Sabrina sat to take her turn on psychic watch duty, even though the creature still was far. The shrine, she noticed, was small, yet complex beyond belief.

She looked around, feeling something strange calling her, drawing her toward the back of the shrine. Wanting to be sure that no one would bother her while she looked at things, she wove flow of psychic powers to convince the minds of her friends to remain asleep. Walking in the rear of the shrine she found a small eye-shaped amethyst lying on the floor, and tried to pick it up, failing, twisting it instead to force it to give way.

Instead, a whole section of wall gave way, letting her step in a room that she had not even suspected existed. This room was entirely different from the one outside they had spent their time in so far. Eight tall marble columns rose high, so high that she could not see the roof, even tough from outside the shrine had seemed small, and a small table was in the middle of the room. She went to the table, in the middle of the group of columns, and picked up the two things lying down there. A golden staff, taller than her, with some adornments on it, amethysts mostly, and a matching purple cloak. Putting the cloak on, she walked outside the room, her staff gripped solidly in her hands.

___________________________ 

Waking up suddenly, Ash noticed within a moment that the room seemed different somehow, as if it was larger than it had been before, and soon found the explanation, a door that had opened in the back of the shrine.

However, there was something much more troublesome - Sabrina was nowhere to be seen. Just as he was about to start shouting however, trying to wake up the others for a search, she came back in the room by the door that had appeared in the back, wearing a long cloak that seemed very familiar in fabric and shape, if not in color and size. Combined with the staff she held, it was not hard to make assumptions, no harder to make good ones.

Riding south still for most of the next day, then for the day after, resting as little as they could, they reached Danea's house soon enough.

Going from the road to the house was a matter of seconds, and they found themselves in within moments, a red-eyes Danea who had wept too much letting them in with a worried-looking Lance following her around. Tanya was nowhere to be seen.

They soon gathered in the living room, standing or sitting to talk, except Danea, who seemed to be completely off, thinking only about whatever it was that depressed her.

"What are you doing here? I tought you were going to Saffron?" asked Lance, who was, Ash couldn't help but notice, casting worried glances at his sister every chances he had.

"We went there already, now we have to go to New Bark," Ash replied quickly, not out for long explanations..

Sabrina, who had been slightly behind, joined them only a few minutes later, entering the house, only to be greeted by Lance and Danea with surprise. Before there was much time to talk, however, Danea retired to her bedroom, claiming she was having a bad headache.

"Sabrina? What are you doing with them?" Lance finally asked after watching as his sister walked away.

"Well...it seem I'm supposed to be with them...The one who Stood Alone..." She said it as if it was nothing important.

"What a fitting name for you..." Lance chuckled half-heartedly, as if he was thinking of something else..

"What's wrong with you Lance?" Sabrina asked "You've been acting depressed ever since we arrived..." She actually sounded worried, something rare. Her eyes glowed with the inner fires of a psychic, and she nodded sadly. "Oh...that old story again, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but...it's not the kind of think you can forget at will...it's surprising she managed to live that long without even trying to kill herself..." he left it hanging, and Ash remembered the visions of the past he had seen.

"She could if she wanted to...she IS one of the strongest psychic in the world after all...she can shield herself from those memories..." Sabrina objected slowly, looking at Lance.

"I don't think she learned how to do that..." Lance answered. Ash knew that was not true, she had managed to weaken the memories of the mill in both him and Misty when they had first met her, however she had done it.

"She could have done it. She did it before."

"Then maybe she still blames herself for it...I don't know..." Lance shrugged helplessly. It was obvious from his face that seeing her being like that tore at him.

"It's certainly not her fault." whispered Damian. Ash whirled, wondering how he knew the story. His father. Of course, Giovanni had been one of the key players. "He tried to do everything he could, and that was not enough...and there was so much more that he could do than what she could do." He shook his head sadly, a hint of disgust in his eyes, probably thinking of his grandfather.

"At least he avenged her...and saved me..." Lance's whisper was barely audible. Ash shook his head, he knew the story. He probably even knew parts that Damian did not know about, such as the fact that there had been consequences to the rape. Namely, Tanya.

"Yes...but he couldn't protect her...save her..." Damian shook his head sadly again.

"I know...I think all of us who were somehow involved in that have been blaming ourselves for how things turned out for the last sixteen years..." Lance shook his head too, bitter pain in them.

There was a long moment of silence. Then Misty broke it.

"Excuse me...but what are you talking about?" Misty interrupted. She did not know the story, he had never told her about it.

"Well...it's a long story..." Lance started. "You know Tanya, of course." It was no question.

"Of course." Misty answered all the same. 

Lance nodded shortly, before continuing.

"Well...this whole story start about sixteen years ago, when Danea was fifteen or so. She hadn't yet taken the youthful look of the family - she was looking like any other fifteen years old. That was when she met a guy, about eight or so years older - Giovanni. Somehow, they managed to fall in love, even with the age difference.... That wouldn't have been bad, if Giovanni's father hadn't been one of the most...how to put it...well, he was suspected of being the major client of most whores in town." He shook his head in disgust, an expression mirrored by Damian, Melody, Elayne, Misty and Sabrina. An expression that was probably just as present on his own face.

"Anyway, he decided that Danea looked like a very nice girl to "try". So, he convinced Giovanni to invite her for supper, introduce her. At some point, he found a reason to get Giovanni outside, locked the doors, and, well...I'm sure you get what happened next." He coughed uncomfortably, though it was already obvious from what he had said before what would have happened next. Rape, the filthiest thing a human could do to another, or close to it at least.

Sabrina muttered something that, if Ash understood well, had to do with a rather nasty form of retribution she had in mind for rapist.

"She never told the details to anyone....We've all been blaming ourselves since then, for not managing to protect her...I knew Lorenzo Scarpa was a pervert, but I didn't warn her...Giovanni brought her to his father, and for a while I thought he was really trying to help his father get her...about until he shot the bastard. We had been friends until that, took us a while after it to manage to rebuild that...and the two of them never managed to look at each other again. I don't know why, they try to avoid each other whenever they can." He shook his head sadly again. "They were a cute couple together, but now that old pervert demolished both of their live. The story don't end there, though. There were consequences to the raping - namely, Tanya, and the fact that neither of them managed to build a relationship after that. Giovanni had been hurt before in another relationship - with your mother." He added, pointing at Damian and Misty. "I guess after that he couldn't bring himself to trust anyone enough for a relationship...and Danea..."

"She never managed to do it either, because she can't trust guys." The voice that completed the sentence was filled with cold fury, and without looking Ash knew who the owner was. "You and mom never told me the full story Lance. Why do you tell them now? Ash is the only one here who even remotely have the right to know, and if he does, so do I."

There was a moment of awkward silence, one that Damian finally broke after cold stares had been exchanged from one end of the room to another.

"I already knew the full story." He said, looking back at Tanya, who stared at him, hate filling her eyes.

"And how exactly?"

"My father told me." His reply was short, as short as her question had been.

"Of course. And how did he learn about it?" The fury was, if anything, growing.

"His name's Giovanni, remember? But then, you already knew that he was the same Giovanni, so don't play innocent."

"All right, all right..." she surrendered, her voice bitter. Misty suddenly smiled, as if she was realizing something, and hugged Tanya. Ash looked at her in surprise.

"What are you doing that for now?" Tanya asked in surprise.

"Well, your father happen to be my grandfather, right?" she pointed out.

"Yeah, so?" Tanya apparently wasn'T much interested in long explanations.

"Then that makes you my aunt." She completed. "Even if you're one year younger than me, you're still my father's sister."

Tanya actually smiled, though only a small smile. 

"I guess that's right...you are my niece, aren't you?" there was a strange sense of wonder in her voice, even though the defensive shell was still there. Suddenly, she seemed to remember something. "We'd better try to come up with a way to help my mother, though. She looks like she's slipping further in depression..."


	2. Winter's Hearth

Part 2 : Heart of Winter

Chapter 6 : Storms

As much as they wanted to help, Ash and his friends could simply not afford to wait, not unless there was no way for them to go ahead. With the beast after them and time running out on the countdown to the battle, there was no time to be taken on even helping their loved ones. They still tried for some time that night to do their best to cheer up Danea, both Kyle and Sabrina wielding their psychic power to some effect, at least restoring some hope to Ash's aunt's eyes.

As soon as she seemed better, they installed themselves to spend the night, trying to sleep as best as they could, hoping they could leave the next morning, that nothign would get in their way. They slept as best as they could that night.

The next morning brought ill news to them all. Deep snows covered the ground all around the house, more falling from the sky, the first and only snowstorm of the year, probably. Admittedly, they had spent most of the winter further south, outside the mountains, but still it had been a rather warm summer.

From the windows of the house, they could not see even ten feet from it, a blanket of whiteness blocking all attempts at doing so. The forecast they could hear on the radio were nothing to make them happy, the blizzard would last a few days, and then they would probably stay snow-bound for a few day more. Dark news, indeed. With time being the essence, having to delay for even a day would be costly, having to delay for a week could very well prove their undoing.

"I hope they're wrong...we really can't afford to be stuck here until summer...." Damian muttered, a worried frown on his face. "We HAVE to get to New Bark - soon." said Damian.

"Don't panic yet." Ash astonished himself with his calm. "We won't be stuck that long. Don't worry."

"I know that too." Damian glared at him. His eyes were as cold, no, colder than the snow outside. "We just don't have the time to waste even a week, but we're stuck all the same..." His voice was bitter, he did not like what was happening. Neither did Ash, neither did any of them.

The storm lasted for two days, two days of snow falling from the sky, two days of wind screeching, carrying the white dust all around them in a fierce blizzard. In the afternoon of the second day, the storm finally started to abate, the clouds in the skies finally vanishing, letting the sun shines again.

As the storm continued, they spent their time in the house, Ash and Sabrina trying to do more for Danea, helping Lance in his so far futile attempts at banishing the darkness out of her mind. Kyle and Melody took most of their time studying the prophecies, while Damian and Misty tried to get to know their newfound aunt better, spending time with her. Apparently, Tanya's hatred of men did not include her closest relatives other than her father, at least not her nephew and cousin. While there was still a frost between her and Ash, it came much more from rivalry, their battling at the league tournament, rather than from her hatred of most men.

Danea seemed to be getting better, her eyes finding hope again, light slowly returning to her tear-stricken face, the look of hopelessness that had continued to strike her regularly for the last few days vanishing slowly. Yet, there still remained some darkness, something unbanishable. Reflecting on the story his father had told them, he could only begin to understand, no, could not even do that. There was no telling what rape felt like, how much she had suffered, what had been taken from her. From many accounts, that she was alive sixteen years after the fact was a miracle in itself. The only think he could understand was the guilt, the fact that she could blame herself for something that she had had no control over, that they all could. Sometime at night, he would blame himself for Gary's death, for Richie's disappearance. The loss of his two best friend was hard, he suspected what Danea had lost on that day, so long ago, was worst.

Three days more passed, three days of trying to understand, three days of simply being unable to comprehend the feelings that ran through his aunt, the dark curse that had been put on her by the madness of a man. Outside, the sun thawed the snow, the paths slowly appearing again, but the dark ways of Danea's mind remained closed by the coldest of winter. There was no understanding her, understanding yet was the key to helping her beyond what they had done, to break the cycle of guilt and pain that held her.

Still, as much work as what remained to be done, they had done enough to at least pull her out of depression, if only for a short while. And there was too much at stake for them to delay their travels any more, they had to leave. The morning of the fourth day after the storm had ended saw them on the roads, their Rapidash walking slowly. 

There was a dark feeling in the air as they rode south that day, perhaps from the fact that the beast was definitely getting closer, half a day away from them at best, and catching up, having used the fact that they were snow bound to catch up to them with relative ease.

"He's moving this way again." Sabrina's voice was tight as they rode south that day, her eyes half closed as she kept her mind on the road.

"Yeah. I can feel it too. Hopefully Lance and the others will be all right." Kyle said, and Ash looked at him, surprised that the young man actually cared about Ash's family.

They kept on riding south, avoiding the deep snowdrifts and staying on the more or less snow-free road, the hooves of their Rapidash beating the ground rhythmically, the world becoming a blur of motion as they raced down toward New Bark.

As fast as they ran, the beast was now faster, gaining up on them with each passing hour, coming close enough for them to see him once, realizing that he was in the sky, though there was no telling if he was mounted on a pokemon, or acting on his own. 

However as much as he tried to keep track of them, whoever the thing was could not help but loose them as dark cloud gathered, and he lost sight of them, or pehaps he had never sighted them at all. From the ground, he had been obvious to them, a dark point in the sky, the reverse was not true, certainly.

However, the dark clouds carried a message of their own. For a brief moment, Ash thought he glimpsed a single shiny point in the storm, then whiteness fell from the sky, snow. The wind picked up, howling with fury, carrying the snow with it, striking their faces, blinding them to the world.

As the new blizzard struck, the seven companions fought to make their way together, Ash holding Misty's hand as they rode slowly side by side, making their way against the screeching wind. Damian rode just before Elayne, trying to shelter her from the wind, not to much effect.

Kyle and Sabrina both fought to keep the wind away from them, erecting psychic walls, Melody sought refuge behind Sabrina as they fought against the wind. They slowly advanced southward, trying their best to make their way despite the tearing wind that struck them.

"We'd better stop!" Ash screamed over the raging storm, hoping that his friends would hear. "We'll get lost otherwise!" 

"We can't!" Damian screamed back, his voice barely audible over the howling wind.

"We have to!" Ash protested, but before Damian could reply, a rumbling sound filled the valley, and Ash realized too late the mistake of screaming. Looking around, he tried to find the direction the Avalanche was coming for, knowing it was coming toward them. He raced, ahead, Misty still close to him, not looking to see if the others were following, hoping they would all manage to survive.

__________________________

The rocky cave they finally found proved to be good cover, a small fissure in the mountain opening up in a larger cave that they could hide in, one that would shelter them from the falling snow. Their cloak, as good as they were at resisting weather, were getting soggy, their clothes under as well, and they were both shivering, chilled to the bone.

Their luck in finding a cave did not end there, they had been carrying some wood on their Rapidash for use as woodfire, something that was very welcome. Starting a fire was easy, with the fire pokemon in their group, and the warmth proved welcome. Still, their soggy clothes were a source of discomfort, but the rest of their clothes were equally soggy, as the packs in which they were had been on top of their backpacks, taking the brunt of the snow and soon letting the melting water through.

Shivering despite the fire, Misty was the first to act, picking up a blanket that Lance had insisted they should take when they had left and covering herself with it as she quickly removed her clothes. Following her example, Ash did the same, feeling much more comfortable though a bit shy at being naked except for the blanket and near Misty.

Still, he moved closer to her, and though she seemed just as shy at first, she moved closer, to the point of awkwardly letting her head rest on his shoulders while still holding the blanket in place. They sat there for a long time, until their clothes were dry, putting them back on as soon as they were.

Still, the warm blankets were very interesting, and even more interesting was the idea of sleep, as Ash could guess that it was nearing nightfall from the light outside the cave, though there wasn't much to see with the snow still falling. 

Tiredness from running around in the blizzard was coming to them, and soon enough they were lying on the relatively even ground of the cave, not far from each other. They each had a blanket, which was good as their cloaks were still wet, and the fire was still strong, but still, there was a definite chill in the air.

"Ash...I'm cold...." Misty finally said, her teeth chattering.

Ash smiled, he knew exactly what she wanted, especially with the small smile she had. Moving closer to her, he slipped under her own blanket, pulling the one he had used over them both, wrapping his arms tightly around her. Another smile appeared on her lips, one of contentment, and her teeth seemed to stop their dance as warmth slowly returned to her, the warmth of the blanket but also their shared warmth.

Her eyes slowly closed, the light in them vanishing as did the light in his own eyes, both of them falling asleep, their head mere inches apart, holding each other tightly. 

__________________________________

The storm raged all around the small group, and Damian cursed violently as he tried to keep his footing. They were near the edge of a cliff, at least he thought they were from what he had seen earlier. He bitterly fought against the wind, cursing himself for not following Ash's advice when there had been time. Now, the group was split, and only Melody and Sabrina were left with him.

Already, they had risked their life once or twice, Sabrina once nearly falling off only to be rescued by the combined work of Melody and Damian, and Melody in turn falling off, only to be lifted by Sabrina's power, saved at the last moment.

A curse as he lost his footing, only to catch Melody's hand. Perhaps it was only a few centimeters of a fall, and there was no need for caution. Perhaps also the chasm ran deep and falling would be death, something he was not interested in risking for now.

More walking, more trying to avoid the chasm, all too long and boring. The snow was too heavy, the weather too cold, the visibility too low for their rapidash, they relied on their own feet now. Stamping the snow, they fought onward, trying to find a refuge, to leave the storm.

The only shining point was that Sabrina could no longer feel the beast, as if the thing had been forced far back by the storm. Of course, any sane, living creatures would have been forced back by the sotrm, which only proved one thing - all of them were mad.

___________________________

Freezing wind, striking her skin vehemently, cold snow flakes, striking her, no longer melting on the spot whey they fell on her, as she was too cold, to frozen to even cause that. Of course, they would melt after a short time, making her situation even more uncomfortable, painful, but still, the thing was, she knew all too well she would die soon unless she found a safe place.

The wind continued howling around her, a screeching force bent on knocking her down, on killing her, on ending her life. One foot moved forward, then the other. Then the one again, an endless rhythm that was the only thing between death and her.

She concentrated on her walking, nothing else, trying to clear her mind, to give herself an immediate goal, such as managing to take the next step against the bitter wind. More snow kept on falling, the fierce storm unending. Again, she put her left foot forward, struggling with the wind, struggling with herself.

But this time, she met no footing, and found herself struggling to keep her balance as she staggered forward. It was a vain struggle, soon she found herself sprawled in the snow. She fought to get up, but her legs were too weak, her energy wasted by the storm.

Desperately, she tried to rise, knowing that unless she got up and found a safe place, her life was at an end, over and done with. But her legs refused to move, as if they had a will of their own, a will not to move. Fighting, she tried to simply move her left leg, but she couldn't, as more snow fell from the sky, slowly covering her.

She tried to push herself up, her weakened arms fighting as best as they could, but even that was a failure, already there was too much snow on her, she was too badly positioned. There would be no fighting, no rising from the snow. 

As the white blanket continued to cover her, she closed her eyes, praying only that death would come soon, a quick release rather than endless hours in the snow, waiting for her torture to end. The cold, the wind, the world slowly vanished.

There was nothing left but blackness as her consciousness slipped away.

____________________________

A pool of water so deep that he could drown him. Ash woke up, slowly opening his eyes to stare in Misty's barely open eyes, her beautiful eyes. His arms were still wrapped around her, and her around him, the blankets covering the two of them. A soft smile was on her lips, one that lifted his heart. A smile that, to him, was worth all the riches in the world. 

She softly caressed his cheek, a loving look in her eyes, one he knew was mirrored in his as they remained there, lying side by side, her red hair mixing with his own, black as midnight. Now that he was no longer tired, Ash could feel all the small rocks under him, making the place they had been sleeping on rather uncomfortable. Yet, even so, he could not remember sleeping that well for ages...there was a feeling of warmth, of safety in the closeness they had shared, one that had enveloped him, sheltering him from the world. Looking at her content face, he could only guess that she had slept as well.

"That was wonderful, wasn't it?" She asked softly. "Being so close..." Her voice was a whisper.

"Yeah." Ash smiled. "Not as wonderful as you, though." Misty smiled.

"I wonder what it's going to be like..." She smiled again, and Ash needed no help to catch the hidden meaning. 

"We'll have to find out for ourselves one day, won't we?" He smiled back.

They ate quickly, still keeping close to each other, not really bothering to notice that the food was burned, or that it didn't really taste good, too engrossed with each other for that to register on their minds.

The storm was over, which was good. The sun shone again, but it shone over a disheartening scene. In their blind race to escape the avalanche, they had entered a valley - one that was now blocked off by the avalanche. The weather was cold, as well, too cold for Celes to fly at least, and trying to have Deathwing make two flight at the high altitude they would have to reach to reach the other side of the avalanche would be too risky with the cold and high winds that seemed to exist high above.

"We'll have to find another way out..." Misty whispered softly, and no more words were wasted. They found another path quickly, a tunnel starting in the caves they had slept in. Hesitating only for a brief moment, they slowly ventured in it.

Of course, perhaps the tunnel went nowhere, but between staying sealed in a valley until time ran out for them - food, water and whatever else they needed to live - and making a desperate attempt at reaching a safe area, there was no choices.

The inky darkness seemed to close on them, claiming them as they walked in the tunnel.

Chapter 7 : Darkened World

A string of bitter oaths to be heard, a tear-stricken face weeping more tears. That was what anyone else would see if they happened to see Damian, watching mournfully the mountains on the other side of the Bay of Bark, hoping against hope that some of them at least would arrive. A futile hope, of course. They were dead from the blizzard, from the avalanche.

Dead from his mistakes, all of them. Elayne. He had killed her; there was no going around it. He had killed them all, been too proud, too confident that things would go well. And they had all paid the price; the world would pay the price. Ash and Misty were lost; the nine would never rise. Elayne was lost, as well, and his heart felt dead.

He felt tired, but could not sleep, would not sleep. Not when sleep brought back memories, brought more guilt than he could survive. Sleeping was for those who had not managed to get three of their best friends killed through being stubborn. It was for those who did not blame themselves.

Sleep was for those who deserved it, those who deserved something in the world. Not those like him, those who were out to ruin lives.

"Stop it." The voice was authoritarian, an order that he could not ignore. He turned to face the woman who was there, wearing a shining gray dress, her long twilight-like fiery hair floating lazily in the cold breeze.

"Why? I failed. I killed them all."

"Are you about done with that?" Enaira was definitely not patient, apparently tired of the constant pain that he had been putting himself through for the last few days.

"No." His reply was simple, short. He had failed, he had gotten his twin sister, his girlfriend, and one of his few friends killed. There was no reason for him to take any respite.

"Damian. Who am I, again?" she asked, her eyes hard.

"Enaira, the weaver of destinies." He could not, would not see where she was going. There was only what he had done, and the price he would make himself pay.

"Exactly. Do you think I would let anyone important to the next test die before it? Seriously?" Her voice seemed to dare him to say yes.

"No, but that still leaves Elayne." Damian countered.

"You'll see her again, even if it's only in the next world, and that's all I'll say. You don't need to find out more for now.

Damian sighed, shaking his head in frustration. As reasonable as her words sounded, he just knew they were wrong. Why couldn't she see that he deserved to take the blame? He was at fault, he had seriously blundered, and whatever she said wouldn't change a thing. He just knew he had been an idiot and he had ruined everything.

"Instead of wasting time mopping around and thinking about how much of a failure you are - in your eyes, why don't you take care of what has to be taken care of here?" 

"To mess it up? Yeah, sure." Bitter words, but as far as he wanted to be concerned, truth.

"That does it. You aren't an idiot. You didn't get them killed. You didn't mess up anything. You didn't fail me. Remind me exactly why you're blaming yourself again? Some stupid reason no one gives a damn about? You have a job to do, get up and do it."

Damian blinked, once, twice. That was certainly something he had never seen, Enaira swearing at anyone, him least of all. He recoiled, not really understanding why she was so bent on convincing him he was not responsible for the disaster - when anyone could easily see he was.

"Now, get working. Or do you want to see me angry?" She glared at him, her eyes almost literally shooting lightning at him. Something he had no doubt that she could actually do, if she wanted. He sighed; it seemed it was pointless to try to convince her he was in fact the looser he knew himself to be.

"All right, I'll do it." He surrendered, still not convinced he would do a good job, but knowing there was no way around it.

_________________________

One eye opened. Closed again, then opening back. An unfamiliar odor filled her nose, and warmth flooded her body. Not in the snow, then, she was no longer cold. A second eye open. Her mind slowly registered information about the world around her. Unfamiliar place, definitely. Stone walls, not the kind of fake stone walls that were used in modern construction to hide concrete, but an old stone wall, looking like it had been built a thousand years before.

"I see you are awake, child." A soft voice, one she had never heard. Turning, Elayne could not find the one who had spoken, not to her left. To her right, she found the woman, seemingly young yet old, much like Danea. Only, while her face, her features were that of a woman of twenty years, her eyes held the wisdom, the knowledge of one who had seen much more springs in the world. Her 

Confusion filled her, the last thing she remembered was being lost in the storm, falling in the snow. How she had wound up in a house with a strange woman was beyond her, something she could not understand. The woman apparently saw the confusion, understood it.

"Don't worry young one. I mean you no harm." A silken voice, soft, a soothing whisper. Elayne relaxed, though she had no reason to trust the woman, she found herself unable not to.

"Who...who are you?" She asked hesitantly, wonderingly. 

"My name...I once was Faile. A long time ago, a long time before your parents were even born, I'd say. Now, I'm just a woman living alone in the mountains. And in case you were wondering, you are here because you walked close to my house during the storm. I saw you, went outside to grab you and get you in."

"The storm..." Her mind, barely awakened, was still slow, trying to figure out everything.

"It wasn't natural. It didn't feel like a normal storm." The woman said briefly, as Elayne started thinking a bit more clearly.

"My friends...Damian..." her whisper was barely audible as she looked around. What had happened to them, considering she had almost died only being saved through sheer luck?

"I don't know about them." With a shake of the head, the woman set a teapot down on the table, handing a cup of the stuff to Elayne, who gratefully took it, letting the warmth beverage fill her. She murmured her thanks, and Faile smiled. "You were alone when I found you, and my pokemon have seen no one else nearby.

"Your pokemon?" Elayne looked around, she could see no pokemon, at least none that she could recognize, as if the area they were in was only filled with new pokemon, never revealed to the world before. A small bird with multi-colored wing flew all around the house, feathers shimmering like a rainbow. A strange tree stood by the door, definitely a pokemon, much like a Sudowoodo, but covered in ice. A pair of wolf-like creatures with burning manes and gray fur raced around in the snow outside, strangely similar to Houndooms but yet somehow very different.

"Interesting aren't they? They are some of the rarest species of pokemon, many of them existing nowhere outside that valley, or existing only in secluded areas where they've never been found before."

Elayne looked around, wonder filling her, ten, twenty more pokemon appearing. All of them but a few species she had never heard off in her life. There weren't that many different species, of course, perhaps four or five only, but seeing all these new pokemon was awesome beyond belief.

She shook herself, ending her contemplation of the wondrous species. Her friends were still lost; she had to find them. She voiced her worries, but the old woman only answered with the briefest of smiles.

"You can't leave now child. The passes are sealed by snow. You'd get lost." Her voice was gentle but firm. "You'd loose your life." Elayne shook her head, frustration bubbling up deep inside her. "The snow will be cleared out in a few weeks...in the meantime, you can stay here...and I can teach you a few things that will be useful for you to know." A mysterious smile appeared on her lips. "Ever wanted to learn about archery, perhaps?"

______________________________

The concepts of day and night had long since vanished, taken away by eternal darkness, a shadow only banished around them in a small flickering sphere of light coming from Charizard's tail fire. No watch, no way to see outside. It might be midnight, it might be noon, it might be twilight or dawn. 

They walked when they could, rested when their sore feet could not take the endless walking anymore. They ate when the hunger proved to much, as rarely and as little as they could, to make sure that what supplies they had would extend for as long as possible. Behind them, shadow. Ahead, more shadow. There was no guarantee they'd find safety by going forward, no guarantee they'd make it back where they had started if they turned back. 

Days had become night outside, to be sure, though they could not tell. There was no telling how long they had been in the cave, no telling if they would ever get out of it. In their timeless, light-less underworld, they knew only that they had been walking for what seemed like forever. In the outside world, it might have been a day, two, a week, a year. 

Once more, they sat down, their weary feet no longer carrying them, as they sat together in a close embrace, trying to banish as much cold as they could by shared warmth, though they had little to share already. Charizard let himself fall on the ground close to them, his tail near the two of them, a warming fire, a welcome gift. But even the tail flame was burning low; soon the pokemon would no longer be able to walk with them, left without the energy to go on.

Slowly, he felt his eyes close, and fell in a dreamless sleep, only to be awakened shortly after - or what seemed a short time to his weary body - by Misty whispering. It was time to go again, to continue on their endless trek through the empty caves. And empty the caves were, no life in any form found in them, no pokemon that they had seen so far.

She kissed him briefly, her eyes scared, her arms around him for a while, then they rose again, continuing on their endless journey. They talked rarely during these long hours, when they did it was in hushed tones, whispers that would avoid awakening the fury of the earth as their shout had awakened the fury of the mountain during the storm.

Their legs were growing stiff, had grown stiff. Too much cold, too much tiredness, too much time walking in the desert tunnels. Darkness, stretching all around them still, unlit by the flames of their rapidash, or whomever else they sent out.

Water was scarce, even. Their pokemon helped, but even they tired, and water was running out just as well as food, energy, and courage.

"Only two more meals, maybe three..." A whisper, Misty's. Ash turned to face her, knowing what she meant. They had been in the cave too long; they had lost too much time.

"I don't think we're going to make it." His voice was sober. There was no end in sight, to the trek at least. The end of their lives was coming, probably. Trapped in the darkness, there would be no hope for them. No survival.

The trek continued one meal disappearing, then another. The last went without notice, and Ash sighed. Now, it was no more a matter of choice. Find an exit soon, no matter how risky it was. They were condemned anyway if they didn't find one, so what would be the point of not taking risks?

A sliver of light gave them hope, before turning everything to despair. As they reached it, they saw that it fell from far above, a hole in the stone wall of the mountains. The hole was too high to reach, their limbs too tired to climb their flying pokemon too tired to carry them upward. Beyond it, a stone wall, a tall cliff blocked the way forward.

Falling down besides the cliff, Ash sighed in defeat. There would be no getting out, except through death. None of their pokemon could carry them up the sheer cliff could climb up the stark wall. Misty fell to the ground besides him, tears of frustration and despair streaking her cheeks, tears that Ash could feel falling down his owns.

There were no words, nothing. They simply held each other, waiting for death. Each passing second Ash felt weaker, a weakness spreading through his body. Misty's eyes slowly closed, though her heart was still beating. His own eyes were closing as well, just before the world finally vanished from his sight he could have sworn he saw two small golden points of light in the darkness of the cave. But it was an illusion; he knew it. His eyes closed as he sought to sleep, knowing it would help him forget the hunger, at least.

____________________________

Soft paws treaded on the rocky ground of the cave, a curious muzzle as the creature approached the two humans. She had never seen them, nor had any others of his species, though they knew of the strange creatures. Had the beast been able, she would have chuckled. For almighty conquerors feared by all pokemon, they certainly were small.

But then, the creature knew better than to trust size as a way of defining power. Strength of mind was what truly mattered, and she could feel that these two had a nearly indomitable will, courage that would sustain them forever.

Her gray fur shining, the pokemon known by her brothers and sisters of the Fallen Moon pack as Faylinn approached the two humans. Indomitable will or no, the two were dying, weakened, and as much as she disliked the idea, she knew she had to help them. The sun-shaped emblem below her head shone, as her golden eyes lit the darkness around her. Flames glowed on her back, her tail burned behind her.

"[i]Mistress of all things of the mind, give of ambition, I need you...[/i]" Her voice rang beyond words, an eternal call that would be heard and answered, she knew it.

She sat to wait, the paler, almost white fur of her belly touching the ground. 

The wait was not long, soon the strange spirit that all psychic pokemon worshipped, though many, her species included, only grudgingly, appeared. There was bad blood between Wolspires like her and most of the strong psychics pokemon, conflict born from the Wolspires's parts in the appearance of the dark pokemon. Mew was more reasonable than most of those pokemon who worshipped her, but then she had only been born after the dark war, the only children ever born from the eight powers, the results of an experiment of the Gods.

Looking at Mew, the Wolspire could only wonder what the power planned, and could not help but be surprised as their feet left the ground. Apparently, she was to leave the underworld, step in the outside world. Thankfully, she had visited it more than once, so she would not have to learn to face the harsh glare of the sun as many denizen of the underworld had to do when they entered the outside world.

______________________________

With a smile, Elayne picked up Faile's gift for her, a beautiful bow. For the past few days, nearly two weeks, she had been training her, showing her how to use the deadly weapon. Surprising no one more than herself, Elayne was actually acquiring the skill rather quickly. She could already hit a stable target at a quite far distance with ease, and even moving targets were not proving to be that much of a challenge.

"Perhaps you should try it, instead of staring at it?" The woman smiled.

"Of course." Elayne smiled. Fail picked up her own bow, noticing for the first time the strange gemstones-like decoration at each end, green as the grass. She shrugged it aside; determinate to avoid any suspicions that would mare the otherwise beautiful day. The snow was melting, the passes would soon be clear.

Picking up her arrow, Faile aimed, her eyes like that of an eagle about to dive at a prey. The bow sang as the arrow took flight, a missile of death hurled at a target a hundred and fifty feet away. Her aim, was true, the red dot on the dead tree that served as a target split in the middle by the screeching iron-tipped wooded shaft. 

Drawing an arrow of her own, Elayne took her own bow, chasing all thoughts from her mind, concentrating only on the target, the arrow she would shoot. A tunnel appeared, as a direct link between her and the target. She released her arrow, the steel tip flashing forward with astounding speed. 

With a solid sound, Faile's arrow split in two, a fissure in the middle of it, Elayne's arrow piercing it. To her, the time to aim and release had seemed like an hour, but she could see, looking around, that it had barely taken more than a few seconds. A quick shot, and the arrow had struck straight on target.

"You have learned well, child." Faile smiled briefly.

Chapter 8 : Huntress

She had watched too long, time had stretched out under her feet for far too many years, years becoming centuries, centuries becoming even a millenium. Idly, Faile wondered when was the last time that she had sent her arrows not at unoffending targets, but at living humans, their heart beating, their flesh warm, but their heart beating no more once the arrows struck.

Her last quest had died out a thousand year ago, a final quest greater than any before at the side of Akira and the Twelve companions of dawn, the name they had given to themselves. Of course, after their victory, they had simply become the nine to most of the world, the remaining three forgotten.

She still remembered, the first time she had met Akira, in the middle of the dragonstorm, a young man, a boy, shipwrecked on the coast near Fuchsia. Her then friend, Jarredo, a prince of the house of Kadshan, had elected to adopt the young man as his son. Tears filled her eyes, Jarredo had not lived long after adopting the young man, slain by dragons soon.

Akira, by then, had been hold enough to fight, and he had had a local blacksmith makes him a sword that would hold pokemon as well. And for some reason, he had asked for a second, identical blade to be made. But rather than killing dragons with it, he had tried to reason with them, ultimately ending the dragon storm and finding the man who was responsible for it, one of the filthy pokemon-haters from the west. Needless to say, the man had not survived his meeting with the young warrior.

At the time, Faile had traveled with Akira to honor Jarredo's memory, but with time growing, a certain friendship had developed between them, despite their ten years of age difference. They both knew that unless someone killed her, Faile would easily outlive any of them, that she would still be young when their descendant would have grown old. Avaraen blood, or as others would put it, Netherspawn blood, flowing through her vein. The creature had tried to possess her, long ago, failing in the end, but still putting her beyond the reach of the cycle of life and death. 

She had elected to stay on, to guide her successor as she appeared, and now she was done at last, a thousand years after all of her friends had departed from the world. 

Behind her, a meganium and a chikorita followed, their leaves whirling around. One was old, beyond old, one who had seen as many winters and summers as her, having taken part of the Avaraen blood to help her mistress fight it back. The other was young, a child of a few winters.

"It's time to leave old friend. We've done enough...your daughter will have to accompany her..." She whispered, a nod from the Meganium the only answer. The Chikorita looked sadly at her mistress, but there was no sound out of her mouth.

She reviewed the note she had left for Elayne one last time, letting it drop on the desk, smiling as she picked up her own bow one last time. Too many years, now was the time to end it all.

Suddenly, she froze. There was a familiar chill in the air, a sense of foreboding, a power that shook her very core. Avaraen, there was one nearby. Too close for comfort, if it even was in the vale, even worst, from the sense she could pick up, the thing was already in the house. A wild Avaraen, too, one that had not yet managed to bind a living body to its will. And unless she missed her guess, a fairly powerful one, one of those able to shake the will of their victims with dreadful nightmare, winning the war before even taking the first strike.

She inched back her way to the room in which Elayne slept, sure enough, the telltale inky patch of darkness that would not go away was there. Faile smiled, there could not be a more perfect way to end her life. Two Avaraen trapped in the same body would destroy themselves in a matter of moment, and the body they were trapped in as well.

Smiling, she made a small cut on her finger. Nothing big, but the smell of fresh blood would be enough to lure the Avaraen, no matter how powerful, away from its first intended victim. A bleeding victim would be rather easy to take over, it would take hours to get a normal one to die. With a tear, Chikorita unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp leaves toward Meganium, wounding the pokemon. More blood fell on the floor, and the Netherspawn rushed toward them. They threw themselves at it, the Avaraen already in them meeting the one attacking. 

Dark energies ripped her body as the two soulless, shapeless entities struggled within her. It was a tremendous force, and it would not withstand the fighting much longer. 

Her body vanished, her life snuffed out, and so did the two Avaraen, as a normal shadow shattered by a clear light.

___________________________

Trust was hard to come by, especially in front of one who seemed to be willing to go to any end to trick helpless travelers. But then, the man seemed like he knew what he was talking about, the description he gave of the object meaning beyond doubt that he had seen it. Damian, of course, recognized what it was upon hearing the tale, there were no two such objects in the world. 

"Why don't you tell us where you found the stone then?" he asked in answer to the claim of the man that if they paid him, he would go get it and give it to them. Of course, he was hardly trustworthy, and Damian certainly did not want to let him run away after taking all their money.

"And let you take the stone without paying? No, I don't think so." The oily voice of the man grated on Damian's nerve, too perfect a voice.

"Half of it now, half of it later." It was risky, even so, but the man had the advantage on them, as they needed him while he fairly obviously could sell the stone to someone else.

"All of it now, or nothing." 

"No." He shook his head. Sabrina and Melody were off to the side, not talking much. They had no idea why the description of the stone he had given. "Sixty percent now, the rest once we have the stone." It was a legitimate counter-offer, but Damian knew. "I'm sure if we looked a little around we could get it without you, anyway." The last was bluff, only to get him to think hard of the place were it was.

"Again, no. All of it now, or nothing." 

Sabrina nodded briefly, a nod he caught only from the corner of his eye, but it was all he needed to know.

"Very well. I'll be nice and still pay you a fourth of it. Beyond that, I believe we are done negotiating." His voice suddenly dropped, becoming cold as winter.

"You won't get the stone." The man's face was confused, as if he didn't understand the sudden change in what they were talking about.

"Yes, we will. Just a lesson for you, never think hard about something you want to keep secret when there's a psychic five feet away." He rose to his feet and walked off, the others following, the man glaring at them in rage as they did so.

As soon as they were off, Damian turned toward Sabrina. 

"Where is it?" He asked, his voice back to its usual controlled self, the voice he used to hide his fears that Enaira had not told him the truth about his friends.

"A cave not far from here. Good job maneuvering him in thinking about it, it helped me a lot." 

"You're welcome." His answer was quick, to the point. 

With the information Sabrina had pilfered from the man's mind, finding the cave in question was a matter of seconds, entering it, easier than a lot of things they had done before. Once there, it barely took a few second to find the gem in question, shining on one of the wall of the cave.

"It is." Damian breathed. "It really is...a starspire gem..." his voice was filled with wonder as the legendary gemstone shone before his eyes. Starspire was the rarest gem on earth, rarer than even the Mithril that was usually processed in a fabric that would then be used to make clothes used by the armies of the world, as they gave very good protecting from gunfire, or Adamantine that was used in the process that gave birth to the blades of the Hoshoan kai masters, a metal harder than any other. Gary's swords had been made of Adamantine, the cloaks worn by Ash, Misty and Sabrina were most definitely made of Mithril fabric, but he would not tell them that for now. There was no need to tell them that by selling their cloaks they could probably buy the whole Celadon pokemart and have some money left to spare.

Starspire gem went beyond that, able to feel the elements all around, and to reveal if a human was attuned to the power. Legend had it that a starspire gem had been used to gather the nine the last time around, finding one now was something that would help him tremendously. Still, there was one final test to be made, so that he could be sure of what he had found.

"Sabrina, could you touch that gem?" He asked her, and she nodded, putting her hand on the stone without moving it. 

The rainbow-colored gem seemed to react to her touch, the swirl of color changing softly, slowly. Yet, soon, there was no more red, no more white, no more blue, no more aqua in it. Only a deep purple was left, the color of the psychics. It definitely was a starspire gem.

"All right, let's get working on digging that thing out."

_________________________

It wasn't the smell that was surprising that morning as Elayne woke up, it was the lack of it. No smell of food came from the kitchen, no noise, nothing. As if Faile was still sleeping, something she had never done in the over three weeks Elayne had been there. Rising from her bed, she looked around for the woman who had taught her so much.

A vine caressed her hand softly, and she turned to face a little Chikorita walking toward her, looking sad, more than sad really. Of Faile and the Meganium, no traces in the house, nor anywhere near it.

Returning to the dining room, she noticed a small piece of paper folded on the table, Faile's elegant handwriting on it. It was addressed to her, there was a key near it. She picked it up, smiling as she recognized the earrings that rested near it, both of them golden with an emerald. Her smile vanished, replaced by a frown, why would Faile leave her only jewels away?

There was a small message on the outside of the folded piece of paper, telling her to use the key on the chest under Faile's bed, that there were things in it that she would need in the near future. A chill filled her as the words met her eyes, the chill of knowing an approaching doom. She did not know what it would be, only that it would forever change her.

The old chest under Faile's bed was surprisingly light and easy to drag off, just as easy to open, well-oiled so that the key fit with ease in the hole. Slowly, almost fearfully, Elayne pushed open the lid of it, not very surprised by what she found, having suspected it since the gift of the bow with two emeralds on it. The short blade resting within the chest, another emerald on the pommel, confirmed her suspicions, though the real confirmation came not from that but from the green cloak resting at the bottom of it, fastened at the neck by a leaf-shaped clasp.

She slowly pulled the cloak off, knowing very well what it meant, that whoever would wear it was definitely one of the nine. She had seen cloaks like that only thrice before - well, more than thrice, but only three cloaks like that. Ash's, Misty's and Sabrina's. And, for some reason, putting that one cloak on her own shoulders felt right. She slowly pulled it around her, closing the clasp, feeling as if a part of her that had always been missing was finally returned.

Looking at the folded piece of paper again, she opened it, no longer surprised by what she saw. The revelation that she was one of the nine, though suspected, still shocked her to her very core. She had traveled with the group because of Damian, but now, she would have to fight along with the others. It was not a pleasant thought.

"My dear Elayne...as you probably know now, you are one of the nine. I have trained you as much as I can so that you would be able to take your place...You might be wondering why I helped you...The truth is, I was one of the nine. Now, I realize this may sounds like a wild claim, but there is no way I can prove it. I survived for the last thousand years thanks to a dark power that once tried to possess me - but I was too strong of will for it to do so, and Meganium helped me. Still, part of it was inside us and we couldn't get older, frozen in time, in a way. But now, I had to die so that you could assume your destiny, and so did Meganium, so that the new Oracle of Life could rise. Now, it's time for you to return to your friends, my ultimate granddaughter. The world needs you, and so do those you care for. The passes are mostly clear of snow, you should have no problem making it back out of the valley. Chikorita, as you probably guessed, is the new oracle. Take good care of her. Farewell Elayne, and may sun and moon guide your way."

A single tear of sadness rolled down her cheeks, only one tear for a lost friend. It fell down on the floor as she tied the dagger to her belt, going back outside to pick up her bow and arrows. She took some food from the house, steeling herself against the feelings of loss that raged through her. She would not weep, she had no time to weep. Catching Chikorita was easy, the pokemon threw herself - literally - at one of her pokeball. 

She stepped out of the house, looking at the valley and the wonderful pokemon in it one last time. She knew she probably would never return, and she never wanted to forget the wonders of the mysterious hidden valley. As her steps carried her back toward the passes, visible in the sky between two high peaks, she took one last look at the wood and smiled. It was time to go back to the world. 

________________________

One eye opening, then another. Ash blinked, wondering how he had gotten from the depths of a tunnel to wherever he now was. All he remembered after the tunnel was a dreamless sleep, one that he had thought at is had closed on him might be death. Only, of course, he was no in an hospital, certainly not in heaven. He smiled, remembering the incident where he had actually mistaken an hospital room for heaven, back before he and Misty had even admitted their love for each other, though only by a few minutes or so. 

"Hello...Ash, is that it? You seem to be finally coming around...took you a while..." the voice came from a woman in white near the bed, obviously from what she was doing a doctor.

"Uh? What?" He was still a bit confused, the words slowly seeping in his mind.

"Well, two days of being out. Your friends were worried sick about you."

"What? My friends?" The plural puzzled him. Had they been reunited with Damian, Elayne and the others?

"Yeah, that red-hair, Misty, and our gym leader."

"Your gym leader was worried sick about me?" Ash was quite stunned by the words. They definitely were not near New Bark, then. Violet, perhaps, but Falkner would not be one to be worried sick about him, they barely knew each other.

"Yeah, even our gym leader. He and that new wife of his have been coming her everyday." The words stunned Ash, as he finally realized where he had wound up.

"Suzie and Brock, you mean?" He finally asked, realizing where they had wound up after their endless trek.

"Yeah, who else? It's not like we have fifty gyms in Pewter." The doctor turned, walking away, then turned back. "Oh, by the way. You seem to be doing fairly well, so I'll let you leave the hospital in a day or two, unless something comes up." She left with these words.

Ash let himself sink in the bed, for the first time in week feeling a comfortable place to sleep. It was no wonder he was so weak, having walked from the southern edge of the mountains all the way to Pewter. He did not notice steps outside, not until a red-haired blur stormed in the room and in his arms.

"Ash!" Misty shouted, throwing her own arms around him in a fierce hug. 

"Misty!" He smiled, hugging her tightly, wanting not to let go. That had been a close brush with death, during their month-long trip through the mountains, and there was so much the two of them had left to live together. So much he wanted to live with her. His hand touched her cheeks in a caress, and she smiled, as they spoke of the events. Behind them, the door opened again, this time letting Brock and Suzie in.

As they spoke, Ash felt a peculiar kind of warmth covering him, the warmth of being around friends and alive after narrowly escaping death. 

Chapter 9 : Syraelle

There wasn't much snow left in the mountain, the storm from a month ago forgotten everywhere but in the mind of Sabrina and her companions as they walked away from New Bark, barely visible on the other side of the Bay, their feet stamping the well-traveled road they had each already taken at least once. The Starspire gem rested in Damian's bag, well-protected, though it was already hard enough not to need that much in the way of protection. 

They had decided, knowing now - thanks to Giovanni - that Misty and Ash were safe in Pewter, to spend some time in the mountains, trying to find traces of Elayne, though hope was slim that they would find her. After a month of being locked in New Bark, there wasn't much chance that a trace of her was left anywhere. But still, they'd look. She was alive, that much was sure. Her location was, of course, unknown. It might be better to simply move around, making some noise, so that she would eventually hear of them and try to rejoin them, but Damian was set on looking for her, so there was not much to be made for a choice.

Turning from her contemplation of the small town they were leaving behind, the young woman took a quick glance at her two companion, her staff resting in her hand, used as a walking stick more than anything. Melody was looking at New Bark, as Sabrina had been doing a short while before. She looked confident that they would succeed, at least Sabrina thought, felt that was the emotion drawn on her face and pulsing from her soul.

Damian seemed deep in thought, his mind radiating worry and concern, perhaps because he himself did not really think that looking for Elayne would accomplish much, or perhaps because despite Enaira's words, he still was afraid the young woman might be dead. She could understand why he cared so deeply about her, the deep loneliness lingering in his soul being only too familiar to her. They were not that different, the realization came slowly. Somehow, it was comforting to know that she was not the only one who had to slowly learn to open to the world. Perhaps because it only strengthened her in her feeling that she was no longer alone, that at last she had people who cared for her.

She took a deep sigh, knowing that even though she was no longer alone, there was a deep loneliness in her life, a loneliness she had never felt before, not until she had dropped her mental shield, her coldness a few years before. The strange loneliness, the aching void had appeared then, and had never stopped to grow. Despite her friends, despite her returned enjoyment of life, there was still something missing in her world, something she desperately wanted, needed. She knew, or at least suspected what the aching void was, what it meant. Love. It had to be it, the need for someone to share her life with. Damian and Elayne, Ash and Misty, everyone around her had someone to love, someone to share their life with. And it was something she needed, someone to whom she could completely open her heart.

She shook her head, not really wanting to think about it anymore. There was no point in wanting what she obviously could not have now. Instead, she tried to keep focusing on the task at hand, which was looking for traces of Elayne.

There was the sound of a pokeball opening, while none of them had called anyone out. However, she knew the shape forming, could feel him appearing on the ground near her with a grimace. Her Gengar, the only pokemon that really trusted her, that really liked her for who she was, besides her Kadabra. But then, Kadabra, while he had grown to like her for who she was, had first joined force with her to increase his powers.

She smiled as Gengar continued making faces, her smile slowly turning in a grin, then laughter coming out of her. Even now, laughter was a rare occurence for her, something she rarely let herself fall in. And something that felt incredibly good to do. There was a purity, a feeling of relaxation to laughing out loud, not caring about the rest of the world. 

The sun was soon going down, of course, as the days were still short, far from their full summer glory, and they had found no traces of Elayne at all, not a single way to tell if she had come close to the path they had traveled. As they had expected, but far less that they had hoped.

Setting down near the campfire, Sabrina tried to think of a way to find Elayne, probing around with her powers, trying to locate the young woman, but failing repeatedly. To feel her from any distance greater than an hour or two of walk would require for Elayne to have powerful feelings that would make her readily identifiable. For now, while she could feel one such presence nearby, it certainly was not Elayne. She looked around, barely noticing the shadows flickering in the light of the fire, not paying attention to them.

Again, she turned her mind toward the presence she felt, close to them, strangely unable to put a name to the emotion the presence radiated with such strength, as if someone was keeping her from guessing. She drew all her power, concentrating her mind on the being, and the barrier broke. She froze for a moment as she recognized the feeling, the presence. 

"Damian! Melody! Watch out! It's that soul-eating thing!" Her yell rang through the small clearing as the two of them turned, putting their back to the fire, assuming fighting stance. Damian had a knife in his right hand, one she had not known he carried, and a pokeball in the other. Melody held a burning stick taken from the fire, a crude weapon but one that could still help. Her staff in her hand, her eyes blazing, Sabrina waited, knowing the thing was too close to avoid confrontation.

And then, a dark wave of dread and hopelessness came over her. There was no point, really, they would be defeated. The enemy could just absorb their soul, how could they fight? The feelings were strong, and the little part of her that wanted to fight had no chances, not until she managed to block off the emotions. It was dangerous, she knew. She had done it before, the price had been terrible. But the price of not blocking off the emotions would be greater. She looked around, her face cold and hard, noticing this time how of the shadows did not change no matter how the light around it changed, darker than anything around it even when surrounded by light.

"Avaraen..." the faint whisper came from Damian and Sabrina readily understood his meaning. She had heard of these creatures that fed despair and dread to other to better seize their spirits. She turned around, five new figures stepping in the light of the fire. One was a woman with a black dress, a red cloak on her shoulders, a look of triump on her face. That one Sabrina knew, and she knew of the woman's psychic powers.

"Syraelle." She growled, holding her staff ready for the attack, her eyes blazing with power ready to be unleashed.

"Sabrina dear...it's been a long time..." There was a malevolent glint in her eyes. "My friend, tie them down." She ordered. The cloaked figure at her side, which Sabrina easily recognized as the one who held such an hatred for them, came forward. 

She tried to fight, but it seemed as if her psychic power glanced on him like water on glass, though she suspected this was the handiwork of Syraelle, a woman with entirely too much power, entirely too much ambition, and entirely too little self-control. Her staff, she realized she did not know how to use. It was taken from her hands on the first strike, thrown away before she could fight. One of the three men who had stepped in the light with Syraelle came from behind, catching her, holding a knife to her throat - only to find the knife flung away, too far for him to get. She pushed him back, pleased to find that as powerful as she was, Syraelle could not extend her protection to all of them. Her eyes blazed with fire as she threw the three men out of the clearing with a few thoughts...

And then found herself locked, unable to move, and heard Syraelle's voice.

"Sabrina, Sabrina, Sabrina. When will you learn to protect yourself when you attack? You left yourself open for me to strike. And I defeated you." She turned toward the strange figure, and gave him the same order, but this time, with her body frozen, Sabrina was unable to resist as the ropes were tightered around her wrists, holding them behind her. 

"Take them to our cave, now." The new order was quick, and the men rapidly loaded them up, but not before putting a rag in her mouth, using a string of rope to make sure it wouldn't come out, effectively gagging her. She tried to kick the man who picked her up, resulting in a scream, but that only earned her to have her ankles bound together as well as she was picked up again and carried away. There was a glint in the man's eyes that she did not like at all, one that seemed to promise the worst kind of treatment she could expect.

_____________________________

"Why did you call me here?" Kyle's voice sounded a bit hollow, as if the question was empty, without sense. It was too late to wonder why he had done it, or why he had been called back that night before the storm.

The blizzard had given him a convenient way to disappear, without having to give an explanation to the rest of the group. If he returned, he would have to explain what had happened to him, but coming up with a story at that point should not be too hard.

"[i]I wanted to hear about how well the whole plan was going.[/i]" the voice rang in the depths of his mind. "[i]And to present your new partner to you, Aimée.[/î]

Kyle turned from the figure who stood on the seat, hooded, eyes glowing toward the young woman stepping in the room from a back door, stunningly beautiful. Her blue eyes sparkled, and her pale greenish hair cascaded down her shoulders.

"So you're Kyle." Her voice was serious, not the voice of someone to be toyed with, something further confirmed by the power he could feel in her, rivaling his own.

"And you are...Aimée, right?" he remembered the name his master had barely mentioned a second earlier.

"That's my name. Now, I think we have to work together, right?" she turned toward were the hooded figure had been, their master, and swore as they both realized he was no longer there.

"All right. I guess that's a yes." The comment was short, matter of fact.

"Yeah, but it would be nice if he had told us what we're supposed to do." Kyle pointed out, his voice sarcastic. "I hate not knowing what's going on. And didn't he want to hear how the plan was going?"

"[i]I already took that out of your mind...and as for your instructions, just get to know each other, one of us will be around to tell you what to do soon enough.[/i]"

"I really wish he would have better plans than that sometime." He muttered, his voice too low for anyone to hear. "We're left with all the planning for his schemes...or else they just fail..."destroy the world and start a new one", or "just follow them and find a way to get close." Or that kind of crap..."

Aimée giggled, watching him with a spark in her eyes. Then, they grew dark and serious, and she slowly looked away.

"Do you know who you are? I mean, beyond Kyle Stery..." she asked slowly, and he didn't react to her knowing his name. She might have been told, or else she had simply taken the information another way.

"Not really, no." He shook his head sadly.

"They didn't tell you anything?" 

"Only that "he" was one of the most courageous person our master knew." The reply was short.

"Not much...but then, all that I know is that "she" was one of the kindest person he knew. And that "she" is long dead." There was no sadness, no bitterness in her voice, as if she was now used to the simple fact that they weren't really human, either of them. That someone, before them, was the same as them as far as looks went - mostly, anyway.

They talked on for a long time about the one thing only the two of them could understand, the one pain the two of the shared.

________________________

They were dropped on the floor of the small house roughly, unceremoniously, still bound tightly and unable to move. Syraelle looked at them, then she turned toward the door as it opened, letting in not humans being, but a living shadow, the same one that had struck at them back in the clearing when they had been attacked.

"Should we kill them now?" One of the rough men asked, a note of regret in his tone. Sabrina, from her position, had no difficulties imagining where the regret might be coming from, and somehow found herself hoping that Syraelle would answer yes to the question.

"Of course not." She looked at the three of them, a cruel smile on her face. "Why would we do that when we can break them and bend them to our will instead?" A smirk appeared on her face as she looked at them. "Do what you want with them. The Avaraen will help you break them." She walked away, the mysterious figure following. "Oh, Sabrina, just in case you were thinking about using your psychic powers to escape, sorry to tell you that they won't work here. I have some business to attend to, I expect you to be suitably broken when I get back.

She walked out, and Sabrina glared at the closing door. The only way out were that door and a window, and tied as they were, it was obvious neither would be very useful. She quickly raised her mental barriers, those that did not require psychic powers, simply the act of blocking away her emotions, knowing it probably wouldn't be enough.

One of the men went to the door, standing there, idly playing with a gun in hand, both defense against those who would try to get in and a mean to ensure more obedience in the three prisoners, that much was obvious. The second went toward Melody, the third toward Sabrina, a glimmer of lust in his eyes. She tried to move out of the way, but with the ropes biting in her wrists and ankles, she could not really move out of the way.

She tried to focus her psychic powers, but as Syraelle had told them, her mind could not focus enough for her to unleash her powers. In the corner, the Avaraen extended its shadow, and she felt the waves of dread emanating from it. The man came closer, slipping an hand up her shirt as he came near enough to do so, his other hand slowly finding its way past her pants.

She recoiled from the touch, as if he was a serpent, waves of disgust striking her even with her mental shields up, disgust, horror, and powerlessness. She tried to move out of the way, but simply could not evade his filthy hands. 

Suddenly, the man stiffened as an arrow found its way into his throat. He drew back, his hands now away from her body and grasping for the intruder that was buried in his body. Looking around, Sabrina saw that all three men were clutching at their throat the same way, the arrows obviously having come from the window of the house. As the men dropped dead, the Avaraen turned toward the door, ready to intercept whoever came in. The black wave that came from it slowly receded as it prepared to fight another ennemy. Only one of the men was still standing, bleeding profusely. The Avaraen seemed to be trying as best as it could to ignore the man, but finally, the scent of blood was too strong.

It rushed, flowing in the wound to seize the body, healing the wounds and giving the man new-found strength, though also filling him with what seemed like a dark hunger, turning again toward the entrance. The wooden door burst open as it was kicked, and a figure stood there, a bow in hand ready to fire. Leveling the weapon, she took aim as Sabrina recognized her. The Avaraen-possessed man charged, but before he could reach the young woman, two more arrows were buried in his throat, and a third had found its way in one eye, half-blinding him. The woman drew a knife, and coldly plucked out the other eye, leaving the Avaraen blind, and powerless as the body holding it died again.

"Looks like I arrived a bit late..." Elayne's voice said from the entrance, and Damian, who had been, by his position, unable to see the new arrival until then tried to say something, though the gag silenced him.

The young woman moved closer to them, removing the ropes and gags with expert strikes of her small knife, freeing them at last. Sabrina shuddered again as she thought of what they had narrowly avoided, and she saw that Melody was shaking uncontrollably.

"We need to get out now, before that Avaraen manages to either get the body back up to working status or else to simply get out and attack again." Damian seemed to understand the situation, though the fact that the Avaraen was trying to regenerate the man Elayne had just killed was obvious. The arrows wounds were closing, and even the eyes seemed to be trying to reform, despite the wooden shaft sticking out of them.

They ran out of the house, and from events that Sabrina only wished she could forget. Danea's pain wasn't so difficult to understand now that she had lived a small part of what had happened to the woman. Not so difficult, far from it.

Chapter 10 : Shattered Lies

They had run enough, and, shaking, Sabrina fell to the ground. Even with the mental void she had managed to make, the events that had just passed had shaken her, badly. Melody seemed far more shaken, she had no mental void, she had never learned to freeze her feelings away.

Damian and Elayne were talking, Damian with tears in his eyes. His first words when he had seen the cloaks had told them all a lot - "No...not you...". He knew the price of being one of the nine, having all those he loved paying it was something he did not want. 

They were talking now, holding each other tightly. To Sabrina, the mere image of a man, his hands that close to a woman was enough to make her shiver after what had just happened. The rational part of her mind told her there was no reason to assume all men were like the two henchmen of Syraelle, but the rest of her still was firmly convinced that it was not so. Melody was looking around like a trapped animal, her eyes fearful, as if she expected them to return. 

Probing gently with her recovered psychic powers, Sabrina could feel the disarray, the total dismay she had been left in. Melody had wanted adventure, she had never expected it to be like that, her illusions were shattered, and all that was left to her were the mental scars, and the fear that it would happen again.

She shook her head, trying to keep her emotions from clouding her mind, the despair and the fear, keeping them at bay as best as she could. There was no way she could let such emotions control her, but on the other hand, she knew the price of not accepting her feelings. A hard choice, one she did not want to make. The choice between letting herself be broken, or becoming too hard, returning to her old self.

For now, it would have to be her old self, as much as she didn't want to. They needed her, needed her strenght, something she would never be able to give them if she let her feelings control her now. Perhaps she would let her feelings have their way at some point, but not now, not yet.

Around them, Elayne and Damian no longer held each other, looking worriedly at the rest of them instead. Sabrina looked back, trying to keep her eyes unreadable, while Melody curled up more, her emotional scars deep, too deep to vanish anytime soon.

_________________________________________

In the northern lands, to the north and east of Johto, the mountains peaks of the Manawan peninsula stood, the mountains-covered coasts of Aysaka visible though barely through the fog on the other side of the strait generally known as the black gauntlet, because of the islands that made the whole place appear like an hand, with a giant maelstrom in the middle.

In the winter, the pack ice would go down far enough to make a frozen bridge between the two continents, which was how the Lotus had been able to establish their first Aysakan base, and evacuate it easily as well. The task had been made especially easy by the fact that their main base in Kanto had been mirrored by a second similar base in Manawa, one that was considered as the safe haven of the Crimson Lotus. The population and government of Manawa supported their views, why would they move against them?

A crushing defeat. That was the only word to describe the results of their adventures in Kanto, to be sure. May Oak was dead, the most brilliant tactician he had ever known. Ethan Starkhad, the only other halfway-decent general the Lotus ever had had, was gone, he had run from his captors, changing his shape and flying away after destroying half the Lotus army through his foolish pride.

Their forces had been annihilated, devastated by the courage of their enemies. They fought for a wrong cause, but they did not fight like cowards of the darkness, fleeing whenever there was the least chance they would be defeated. No, they had fought like real lions, giving their life without hesitation in the defense of what, he realized for the first time, they really believed in. To them, using pokemon was as natural, as good, as it was to destroy them to him.

And if both him and them believed the same thing as strongly, then how could he claim in any way to be right, beyond any doubt? 

And then, did that mean he had been leaving a lie for his whole life? Believing, breathing, fighting in the name of a lie, something that was no surer than saying "I will win at the lottery tomorrow?". He shook his head, the weight of thirty years in command of the Lotus all too much on his shoulders. So much resources that could have been used to do much more, but instead had been wasted on a war that perhaps was not meant to be...

"You feel it to, don't you?" He turned toward the other man in the room, the only competent military leader the Lotus had left.

"Yes, sir." Eric Nelson's voice was not desperate, just resigned. Was the fact that both of them thought the same another sign that it was the truth? That the Way of the Lotus was a lie carried over eons by fanatical belief? "May told me more than once that no matter how hard she tried, she could feel no evil, no duplicity, in the soul that was bound to hers. Or at least not enough to mean anything, far less than what she found in most humans." He wiped a small tear from the corner of his eyes, then shook his head. The Grandmaster had known of their closeness, it had never really bothered him.

"A lie...all the fighting, all the killing...all of it, for a damn lie." He looked around for something to kick, but there was nothing. "How could we be so stupid? So mad?"

"We thought it was true...because we did not like pokemon. Some of us, like May, because of her families. Others because they had been forced to become trainers and hated it. Others because they had been attacked by wild pokemon while they were young. A thousand reasons, all of them good. And when someone told us of the evil behind the pokemon, we wanted nothing more than to believe them." Nelson shook his head slowly, sadness in his eyes.

"Yes, that make sense...but still...If you have a good reason to hate someone, and then someone else tells you that person is evil...how could you go and kill them? Had they been humans, we would have been as mad as Shayren.". He had been the leader of a Serland country, and had ordered thousand of innocents slaughtered, and the armies to shoot at protesters barely even armed with stones, even kids, because he perceived them as a menace to his state while they sought to reclaim what Shayren and his predecessors had taken away from them.

"I would not go quite that far." Nelson murmured, his voice barely audible.

"I would. And I won't fight that way for a lie anymore. The Lotus is dying, but I won't be the one to let it die or save it with a new cause. Gather the section chiefs, Nelson. It's time for a new leader " He watched the young man depart, wishing there was something else he could do, someone else he could see. But no, there was no way around it. He was wiser than most, and he had been taught much by Oak.

"And I'm sorry for the weight I'm about to put on your shoulders." He whispered to empty air, words meant for the young man who had just left.

____________________________

Dark, damp. Musty, foul-smelling. The dungeons of the Crimson Lotus base in Manawa were meant for one thing and one thing only, to break the mind of those trapped inside, to make the work of the questioners who tortured the prisoners to get them to admit their sin easier. There were many prisoners in each of the cell, but the sound of voice was nowhere to be heard, or if it was, it would be followed by the crack of a whip, the piercing remember that the jail keepers wanted nothing but silence. To help remorse grow in the tainted, that their redemption might be easier.

Of all the things, the pain was hard, the darkness, the heat, the dampness were hard, but nothing was as terrible as the ever present silence. Barely sitting on the edge of the small bunk that was hers, Lily Waterflower tried to avoid as best as she could putting weight on the many red welts that covered her legs, traces of one of many torture session. There were others, burn marks, missing nails, perhaps a few broken bones, a black eyes, or at least what she believed was one. They had not moved to the stage of letting the soldiers have their way with her yet, though she knew that it would come all too soon if she kept denying what they wanted, if she kept, as they would put it, refusing to admit her sins.

The threat disgusted her, true, but the idea of giving in to their mad claim disgusted her even more so, and the hope that she would one day be free again sustained her. If that day came, she would rather have gone though every torture they could throw at her than having given in to their false believes.

She looked around, watching the other prisoners, both men and women, all scantily clad, all fastened to the wall by a chain that ran from a band around their right ankle to the massive stone walls, getting a vague idea of what they were like despite the darkness. To her right, sleeping, a young woman seemed to be dreaming tossing around, perhaps facing nightmares, as from what Lily could guess she had faced the more advanced stage of the torture process already on her. She had blue hair, once held by a now long-gone headband, her pale green shirt torn and dirty, barely covering even her chest, being all that remained of her original clothes, or at least those she had worn the day she had come in. Pants, too large for her, had become part of her outfit one day, after, from what Lily could guess, her previous ones had been torn to bits during the torture process. Beyond her was an old man, one who had a bad tendency to swear profusely when he came back from his own torture sessions. 

On the other side, a young man, one she had seen once or twice before her capture but could not put a name on. He had yellow hair, now short and once shaved. His body was certainly not muscular, he rather seemed to have the frame of an intellectual, an assumption reinforced by the shape of the broken glasses that were near him. He was asleep just as well now, having collapsed all of a sudden a short while back. His eyes, strangely, were open, though all other signs seemed to indicate he was gone from this world and had moved to the world of dreams.

She turned back on her own situation, wondering once again if her course of defiance was the right one, as the simple idea of the torture they would put her through all too soon ran through her mind. Looking at those around her who had undergone the further steps, she certainly did not want to face it, but thinking about her sisters, her city, she did not want to give up either.

There seemed to be an ever so brief flicker of green light, when it vanished she watched in utter surprise as she realized her chain was gone. Looking around, it was easy to realize the same could be said of everyone else in the cell. Only one guard stood at the entrance, she wondered for a moment what he would do, then gasped in stunned amazement as the young intellectual seemed to wake up and send a fierce bolt of thunder right at him.

The guard toppled, and Lily threw a cursory glance at the young man, he seemed as mystified as her by what had just happened. Then there was another flicker of green light, but one that did not end quite so quickly. They raced out, all of them having once seen the path and memorized it in the then futile hope they would manage to escape somehow. The few guards they encountered seeemed frozen in time, unable to move, as if a force was holding them in time. On their way, they ran through a room filled with pokeball, some empty, some filled, and each took as much as they could carry, sometime even recognizing some pokeball they knew as belonging to them or their friends.

The pokeball gathered, they continued racing, making their way toward the main dock were they hoped they could find a ship. They were in luck, one was waiting, and it was large enough for them all. Lily, despites her wound, took the help. She, like her sisters, had grown with the sea, piloting a ship had no secrets for her. Speeding away, she worried that they might encounter Lotus ships, but none seemed to come for them. Their resources depleted, the Lotus could not afford to go after prisoners like that, it seemed.

She seemed to notice two human figures watching from the dock, but had no time for that, as a wave of energy suddenly struck the ship. When it dissipated, she looked in puzzlement at the all-too-familiar surroundings - the sea just north of Cerulean City, were her whole ordeal had begun. Finally, they were all back home.

On the dock far away, Aimée and Kyle looked at the Lotus headquarters one last time, before in turn leaving, the young psychic carrying them far away, to wait and observe, knowing their part was far from over.

______________________________

The reports of the prisoners fleeing did not bother him overmuch, not after all that he had realized. They had been right to fight them, there was no reason to keep on trying to convert them. The mystery of how they had gone, a second there, the other away from the base in a ship with the guard in their room dead, was better left for another day, if he ever tried to solve it. There was not much in the way of interest for that.

No, the time of the crimson Lotus, as least its time as their leaders was over, and hopefully Nelson would be able to salvage something and give a new goal to their group. A new way to see the world...they needed Nelson, much more so than they needed an old man who had seen too many battles.

He turned away from his desk, going to the window again. Far from his office, the mist-shrouded mountains of Kanto and beyond seemed to call to him, a call he did not understand. He had joined the lotus over his hatred of pokemon, after they had stolen his son from house, had made his way to the top, only to find that his first and foremost opponent would be the son he had lost. Just has May Oak had found herself forced to face her brother, after joining the Lotus because the pokemon had pushed the two apart. 

All his life, he had felt somehow drawn to the foreboding peaks of northern Kanto and Johto, a stronger call for each step west that he took, a call toward the ever frozen spears that clawed at the sky. His son had spoken of a similar calling, there was no telling if others in their family had felt it too.

But now, he would leave the Crimson Lotus, once and for all. And, if God was willing, he would find the source of the calling, or die trying. A bird flew close to his window, a pokemon, there was no doubt about it. The creature seemed lost, wandering, and he looked at it for a long time.

Without warning, he felt the pain of a blade sinking in his belly, held by an hand that came from behind him, the pain of being stabbed, and turned. Ethan Starkhad, the traitor, was there. The grand master face contorted in pain and rage as he reached for his weapon to kill him. 

"None of that." Starkhad voice was chilly, and with a quick flicker of his hand, he flung the weapon away, sending it falling in the sea far below. With contempt, he pushed the grand master to the floor, and as the old man struggled helplessly, he could not help but watch the triumphant face of his killer.

"You shouldn't have betrayed me and sent your goons to arrest me. I'd have given you - me - all of us - the world, but thanks to you and Oak, we lost everything instead." The words pierced at his soul, lies beyond lies, lies that he would never believe in.

"Wondering how I got here, aren't you? Remember the first soul that was chained to mine? That's right. I turned my shape in a flying pokemon and flew here - not the little bird you were petting, that one only provided a useful distraction." His voice was filled with pride and contempt, pride of himself, contempt for those who opposed him. Pride, which was his first and most important weakness.

Before he could think of anything else, the world began to fade around him, and as he died, his soul slowly drifted away, toward the distant mountains...

____________________________

The section chiefs were gathered, following him closely. All of them were respected members of the Lotus, all of them outranking him, but yet they were following, as the orders he was passing on to them came from the grand master. The door to the man's office slid open, but where the grand master should have been waiting, Ethan Starkhad stood. Two bodies were there as well, that of the grand master, holding a gun that he had obviously used on himself, and that of a strange shadow-like creature. Starkhad's eyes seemed to blaze with fanatical light.

"That creature managed to convince the Grand Master to kill himself in despair. I killed it, but too late." He reported quickly. "With his dying breath, he said I was to lead the Lotus, and if that is his will, I will take the duty, though I do not want it." His voice was pious, but Nelson knew better, knew of the ambition that was hidden past the words.

"No. The grand master would not have put you in charge. He considered you a traitor, he would never have given someone like you command of the Lotus." Hard steel was in his voice.

"That's true." The section chief who had spoken was the lead diplomat of the Crimson Lotus, and one of the least fanatical member of the Lotus. He was also the brother of the old grand master.

"And who else would he choose? Who else would lead us? You, maybe?" His voice was silken, and Eric had to keep himself from hitting him in the face.

"If it means not letting you lead, I'd be glad to take command." His fists were closed, his eyes hard. There was no way the traitor who was responsible for May's death would take command. Not now, not ever.

"I'm with Nelson." The diplomat was first to speak, but before he even finished, another voice rose.

"I'm with Starkhad. Oak is dead, and Nelson only got up in the ranks because he slept with her." The leader of the inquisitors was definitely not a man to be trifled with, and the fact was that May had forced him to back down more than once definitely did tip the scales here.

Others followed, some going to him, others gathering around Starkhad. In the end, the balance of power was left in the hand of the crazy bastard, though barely.

"Now, will you betray the Lotus or follow me?" Starkhad's eyes were hard.

"I won't betray the Lotus." His voice was reluctant, and Starhakd's eyes were filled with triumpth. The path looming ahead would be an hard path, but he would follow it. "I won't betray the Lotus. I'll save it from your madness." He stalked away, those who had supported him following, soldiers gathering around them along the way as news spread, those who had served May in the war, those who knew of what Starkhad had done. The troop transports waiting at the great dock below would provide a good way to leave, and once they had gone, they would be able to start rebuilding what Starkhad had taken away.

And hopefully, find a new path for the Lotus.


	3. Healing

Part 3 : A Time of Healing

Chapter 11 : Son and Daughter

Winter was definitely over, at least it was in Pewter. Holding his wife's hand, Brock walked through the street, enjoying the fresh spring air and looking at all the buds and leaves slowly appearing all over the lawns. Even in a town so closely associated with the color gray as Pewter, there was lot of green, trees, lawns, flowers, all over the town. Suzie definitely enjoyed all the greenery she could find, which was not surprising seeing as she was from Celadon, the town most famous for its gardens and great parks.

Another thought crossed his mind, another smile. He had teased Ash and Misty once or twice, saying with a smile more than once that they really should not have missed his wedding, seeing as it would have given them much-needed practical knowledge about the working of the ceremony - knowledge they would have needed at a time not so far off for their own wedding. Of course, they had retaliated by saying they were still too young for it, which he had to admit was true, but the look in their eyes when he had mentioned the idea had said louder than word that the idea had already crossed their minds.

They were still staying at the pokemon center, Ash but recently released from the hospital were he had been kept under watch by the medical crew after his latest brush with death. If there was one person in the world of whom it could be said that death did not want him, it was definitely Ash. Brock had lost track of the number of time his friend had narrowly escaped a trip to heaven or hell, Tenjou or Jikogu, or, depending on which religion was right - if any of them was - wherever dead were sent.

Two all too-familiar figures approached, their clothes however not any of those Brock was used to see, though considering how fanatic the two were when it came to disguise, nothing out of the ordinary. What was definitely out of the ordinary was the two pokemon accompanying them, completely different from what Brock would have expected to see at the side of any of them.

A rapidash was there, not like any other he had ever seen. Rather than the usual yellowish white coat, her coat was white as new snow, sparkling under the ray of the sun, a sharp contrast with her mane of fire. Her horn was sparkling as well, but the sparkle of pure gold, as the creatures seemed more like the unicorn of legend than a Rapidash. The second one was even more surprising, looking very much like a pidgeot in size and shape, but with a body in various shade of blue rather than the traditional cream and brown coloring of the pidgeot. The sharp end of each feather made them seem like feather of ice, the bird looking not that different from the traditional pictures of the legendary bird Articuno. It was not the bird of ice, by any stretch of imagination still, but it was a bird of ice, definitely.

The two humans noticed him quickly, waving from afar. He had made an uneasy truce with them when they had stormed the Rocket headquarters, in the war against the Lotus they had become welcome allies, a far cry from the thoroughly annoying and hopelessly inept thieves they had once been. Green eyes and blue haired, James definitely looked better in the long light blue cloak than in any of the dress he had worn over the years in their hopeless attempts to steal Pikachu, better too than in his white rocket uniform. Jessie's new outfit - a simple black shirt and an equally simple black pant - went on her far better than her old uniform, and the touch of style that was added by the long fiery red cloak did help her look.

"Brock!" James voice, no longer unsure or whiny, hailed him.

"Hello!" He called back, heading toward them, Suzie reluctantly following. She did not really like Team Rocket, probably a leftover of the Salon Roquet events. "What leads you to Pewter?" He asked as they came closer.

"Simple stuff. We're looking for two certain twerps, and the boss tell us they are around here." Jessie's answer was quick and to the point.

"And I suppose you were after asking me to find them for you?" There was a touch of wry humor in his voice. Yes, Team Rocket had changed, and definitely for the better.

"That wasn't our plan, but since you are suggesting it..." James left it hanging with a grin.

"The pokemon center. By the way, vast improvement in the domain of disguise. At least that way we can recognize you without you being humiliated by how stupid your disguise are." He grinned.

"Hey!" James protested loudly.

"Ha. Ha. Ha. I laughed." There was a faint note of amusement in Jessie's voice, perhaps she was admitting that their disguise simply had not been very good. "Thank you for the directions anyway." She smiled, then the two of them left. Suzie sighed.

"I'm not sure why...I know they're nice now, but it's hard to start trusting them. I guess I'm a bit like Vulpix, I don't give my trust or friendship easily...

"Don't worry about it dear. It's hard to get rid of first impressions sometime." Brock smiled, wrapping her arms tightly around her. She relaxed slightly, looking at her husband with loving eyes.

Life was good indeed.

________________________

Their eyes were locked in contemplation of each other as they sat side by side on one of the many huge couch in the large Pewter City pokemon center. Without leaving the purple mysteries that were Ash's eyes - her Ash's eyes - Misty reached for her glass of orange juice, slowly drinking from it while not letting the eye contact break for an instant. Some might have argued that drinking in the middle of a romantic moment would break the mood, but to them, simply being together, and above it the simple eye contact was enough. 

"Ash?" She whispered softly, a question suddenly coming for no reason that she could perceive.

"Yes dear?" His eyes were warm, a warmth she could feel flowing in her.

"Do you think we stand a chance? I mean...this whole prophecy thing..." Some of her fears of failure had returned lately. Yes, the world would go on if they failed, without even any noticeable change...but it would be failure still, something she did not really like.

"I...I guess so." He shrugged, a brief hesitation in his voice saying louder than word that he was no surer than she was, if perhaps not worrying as much about it. "I mean, if Akira and them all were able to pull it off a thousand years ago...why not us now?" 

"Yeah, I guess so..." He actually made sense, though he sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her. 

Before they could add to the conversation, the light went out, save for one, revealing two familiars figure standing in the pokemon center. Misty sighed inwardly, wondering why they felt the need to make a spectacular entrance so often.

"We thought we'd do our motto one last time." Jessie smiled, and Misty noticed the cloaks the two of them wore. There was no way it meant what she thought it might mean, but yet...

"But we decided to let that go. You know who we are, so there's no need to introduce ourselves." James added, grinning. The light went on again, and the two of them approached Misty and Ash.

"Glad to see you guys made it away from that thing." Ash smiled. Misty nodded, she had been just a little bit worried about the two of them. That they had once been rival certainly did not mean she or Ash wished for them to die or have their soul sucked out.

"Wasn't hard. We just made our way west at first to be out of the way, and he wasn't after us." 

"Though he might be soon. Since he's after you guys..." Jessie shook her head, as if she was trying to get herself to believe something that was unbelievable to her. Misty raised an eyebrow at the last, wondering what it meant.

"Here's a letter from the boss." James reached inside one of his pocket, handing a folded piece of paper to Misty.

"Why not just say whatever he's saying in there to me by phone? It's not like he don't know where we are..."

"You'll have to ask that to him." Jessie shrugged. "I think he wanted us to bring you that message - not that he wanted the message to be brought, but that he wanted us to arrive with it..." 

Misty took the piece of paper wonderingly. Her father was strange, definitely, but he surely had a good reason to send the message with the two of them. Looking at their cloaks, the two new pokemon accompanying them, and at the heavy bundle she now could see the two of them carried, she could not help but shiver at the idea that it might just be what she had first thought. 

The letter was straightforward, and it confirmed the worst of her suspicions. A few words, rapidly scribbled. And, with them, the one thing she had hoped not to see. A piece of the prophecies, one of the part describing the nine.

"Son of Storms, Daughter of Flames, cold and fiery"

"One born from the hidden guardians of the path"

"The other seeking freedom, forsaking riches"

"Enemies of the child, they will never prevail"

"The light at their side, they will rise to the very sky"

The rest of the letter mostly described Giovanni's analysis that the lines applied to the two of them. Jessie's mother had been a top ranking rocket agent - the guardians of the path, no doubt - while James had fled from his rich family to retain his freedom. The two of them had long been enemies of Ash, but never prevailing against him, while as soon as he wasn't around they were far more successful.

It made sense, it made a lot of sense. It was also one of the worst piece of new she could have received, especially after that worried talk about their chances of victory. Sure, they had proved to be good fighters when not opposing Ash, and especially so when allied with him, but still, the fact was that to her, they were the two villains who lost more battles than they fought.

"I suppose you know what this is about?" She turned toward the two of them, but was interrupted by a flash of red light coming from Ash's pokeball. Aysen appeared, looking at the two of them, then at the two pokemon that stood by the two Rocket.

"The Oracle of Ashes. And the Oracle of Winter." His mental voice was heard by them all, and the two pokemon nodded at once. Misty looked closer at them, marveling as she realized that they definitely were not standard pokemon.

"I am Snow Pearl, of the Crescent moon clan of Rapidash that once lived on Cinnabar island." The rapidash bowed slightly, her silver coat shining as her mental voice rang within their head. Definitely, an oracle, then, as the pokemon was not psychic.

"And I am Rafleen." The strange ice pidgeot bowed in turn. "I have no tribe nor type." There was a sense of sadness to his words, a sense of homelessness. 

"I guess they spoke for us..." Jessie shrugged. "Yeah, we know about the nine and all. We even have our weapons already. Isn't that nice?" she grinned, taking one of the bundles and unwrapping it, revealing the sword held within, not a katana like the weapons Ash and Misty both carried but a long sword, the kind of weapon often associated with medieval warriors. It seemed heavy, yet Jessie apparently had no problem carrying it. James in turn unwrapped his weapon, revealing what seened like a staff - but as he pressed a small part of the handle, the tip of it revealed a iron tip, that of a spear. He played with it a little, retracting the tip, letting it out again. It was a very artfully concealed weapon, looking like nothing more than a walking stick - right until the moment the blade appeared just before sinking in the body of the unsuspecting opponent.

"And I guess we're stuck with you..." Ash added, his tone like that of someone who knew death was coming for him. He then grinned at them as the two of them arched their eyebrows and Misty smiled.

"It's not like we're useless after all...we just helped you time and times again against these good-for-nothing Butch and Cassidy, and we did lend a serious hand against the Lotus..." Jessie pointed out.

"Not to mention we helped you with that Chosen one thing..." James added, and Ash nodded.

"True. And anyway, it's not like we have much choice. The question is, where will we go when we leave here..."

"Or when we'll leave." Misty added. 

They sat down and started planning, sharing what little information they had.

__________________________________

Syraelle surveyed the remnants of her ambush group calmly, her eyes blazing as she looked at the disaster. Beyond him, her sole remaining lieutenant - not a lieutenant, but actually her equal, their master had been clear on it, yet he generally followed her orders - waited, his dark hooded cloak hiding his feature.

She should have expected the counterstrike, should have thought it would come. But now she had not, and it was too late to worry about it, the prisoners gone. 

"The master won'T be pleased. We were supposed to bend them to our will." The deep voice was not the one of the soul that had once owned the body of the dark-cloaked man. It was something that chilled even her, the voice, deep and guttural, of an Avaraen.

"It's not as bad as it look. From the look of things, I'd say that the two girls at least were quite shaken by the encounter. And shaken people make mistakes Slayer." 

"Are you shaken then Syraelle? Because it appear to me you made a mistake." The voice was flat, emotionless. The visage, hidden by a hood, could not betray feelings. There was no way to know what the Avaraen thought, beyond that lie was quite beyond them, so that they only spoke the truth, though they could bend it quite well.

"Not so. I am thinking clearly. They outsmarted me, but I will outsmart them the next time. Lord Jared and the Master will not have to worry about it." 

"If you say so. But I'm afraid I am not a good choice to track them. They can feel me, my hatred."

"I know." Syraelle nodded bluntly, knowing Sabrina had implied that much during their controntation, by the way she had been able to sound the alarm before they had actually revealed themselves.

Picking up a knife from her bag, she approached the center of the house, tracing a few marks in the dust with her feet. A circle of dread, one that could open a tiny portal to the nether, large enough for the nether to create and send one spawn, if the circle was properly baited. Being careful that the mark on her right hand, the sign of Rethen, was visible, she quickly scratched one of her left finger, a drop of blood falling in the middle of the circle. A shadowed mist began to form, soon coalescing in the shape of an Avaraen that turned toward her wound, only to recoil as the mark in her right hand began to glow.

From her free hand, she took a pokeball she carried with her, a pidgey within, and quickly cut a wound in the flesh of the creature, offering it to the Avaraen, who rushed in the beast. The eyes that had closed due to the pain opened again, revealing black, malevolent eyes.

"Mistress?" The Avaraen asked.

"Read my mind. Find those three, and follow them, wherever they go. Do not hate them, do not be curious about them. Just follow them." The creature bowed as Syraelle finished instructing it. It flew away, the wound repaired, the shadow fully in command.

"Maybe you escaped now, but you'll fall yet, Seeker...and you, Sabrina, you will return to the darkness that's your true nature, like the last psychic champion.... We both know it..." She smiled, conscious that neither of them could hear her, conscious also that it felt good simply to issue threat at empty air. 

Chapter 12 : Edge of Despair

"Ash? You'd better come here now." The voice of Brock snapped him out of his daydreaming. He had been thinking about Misty, who had left to gather some supplies for their traveling, and had stopped paying attention to the world around. Brock had apparently entered the pokemon center while he was so distracted.

He rose from his seat, Raiken following him as ever, turning around his feet.

"What is it Brock?" He asked as he headed toward the videophones area, were his friend was waiting with the local nurse.

"Priority Red message relayed by the league headquarters. For you. Looks like there's an emergency, and they need you." Brock looked at him, and for a second Ash wished he could be invisible. He had not wanted to be a hero, had not wanted to lead an army. He had been stuck doing both, and now was stuck with the glory resulting from it. He shook his head, and hurried to join his friend. As he reached the videophone, glass walls fell around him, glasses treated so as to let him see outside without letting them see inside. It was part of the security measures involved in receiving priority red messages, no matter what these messages were about.

The screen turned on, revealing the face of his father, weary and worried. His eyes seemed on the verge of panic, as if he was confronted by something that hurt him personally yet could not do anything about it.

"Ash, at last." He looked at his son. "I need you, now. You and all your friends." He was dreadfully serious. "I know about the prophecy and all, but it's really important. Tanya managed to find Damian and the others, she's bringing them here right now. Hurry as much as you can. I've already called Bruno to ask him to send you all the flying pokemon we gathered for you, they might help." 

"Hurry where?" Ash was truly concerned now, wondering what had upset his father so much.

"Danea's house. Don't waste time Ash...every second you lose might be one second too much."

The screen went blank, leaving a worried Ash alone in the small booth. He pressed the button that commanded the opening of the doors, and stepped out.

"What is it?" Brock asked, his eyes worried.

"I don't really know. My father just said he wanted me to get to Danea's place as fast as I can. Which I'll do. Could you get Misty, Jessie and James for me?" his voice was tight, controlled.

"All right. They're at the grocery on the other side of the street, I think." He nodded and left, just as Suzie entered. She took a quick look around then followed her husband without a word.

Ash turned toward the transfer device in the back of the room, were a pair of white and red pokeball was being collected by Nurse Joy. He walked up to her, and she turned, facing him and handling him the two pokeball, soon after followed by three others that fell off the machine. He picked them up, not even bothering to look at the pokemon inside. There was no time for it now, he picked up his luggage, sending Deathwing out to help him carry that of the others. The dragon easily picked it as they rushed outside the pokemon center.

"What's wrong Ash?" Misty asked him as soon as they met in the middle of the paved street that was kept clear of cars because of it's narrowness.

"We have to get to Danea's place quickly. Damian and the others are also going to be there." His answer was short, he did not know much.

"I guess we'll follow...isn't it a long walk though?" Jessie asked.

"A long walk. Not a long flight." He pulled one of the pokeball he had been handed by the Nurse and handed it to Jessie. "You can fly that one. Misty, you can take Celes, I'll go with Deathwing. James, you can use Rafleen, right?" 

James nodded quickly, picking up his luggage from the things Deathwing had carried, as Misty did the same, soon imitated by Jessie, who called out the pokemon in the pokeball Ash had given her, revealing a Fearow inside. The great bird stared around, then turned to Jessie, bowing slightly as he did so. He was trained to carry human in flight, that much was obvious, and he had apparently realized Jessie would be his passenger. 

"What's your name?" Ash asked quickly.

"Kaze. It means wind." The reply was short, and Ash nodded, recognizing the Hoshoan term. He relayed the information to Jessie, who nodded. 

"Ah, ok." Jessie nodded briefly, climbing on the back of the bird even as Ash, James and Misty did the same.

Brock and Suzie watched them getting ready to leave, their eyes worried. 

"Are you sure you have no idea why he called you?" Brock asked once again, and Ash could only shake his head.

"Yeah, I'm sure." His reply was short again. There was no time to waste in explanations, his father had convinced him of that.

"All right then...take care, all of you. Don't forget to call us from time to time...just because we can't get involved in the action don't mean we don't want to hear of it."

"Don't worry Brock! We won't forget!" Misty's promise came with a smile, and Ash smiled too, as he waved goodbye to his two friends, the four pokemon taking to the sky, their wings clawing at empty air as they rose, their human passengers sitting on their backs.

As they flew away, Ash somehow, deep inside, knew that he would not see Brock - or Suzie - again before their world ended.

___________________________

From Pewter to Danea's house, it took them three days, three days of frantic flying, barely stopping once in a while to let the sore wings of the four birds rest, or else to sleep at night, knowing the risk of falling off was too great to fly at night and sleep on the way.

There was no enjoying the flight, no enjoying the feeling of freedom that Ash usually had while flying around on Celes or Deathwing. He was too worried, too concerned about what would happen once they got there to really think about the moment. The future was too worrying for the present to be enjoyable.

They landed near Danea's house, exhausted and still worried, at least Ash himself was. Misty seemed to be as well, though Jessie and James seemed more curious than worried, perhaps because they had not heard the urgency in Lance's voice. There was no way they could understand without having seen it the panic that had seemed to fill Ash's father at the time the two had spoken. He was more than worried, he was sick with worry.

Damian and the others were already there, as they could easily see the second they reached the house, as Damian came out to welcome them. Elayne was close behind, and Ash breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that she too had survived. Only Kyle was still missing, and Ash was quite sure the young psychic, after his feats at Viridian, was able to take care of himself. If he was surprised to see Jessie and James with them, Damian did not reveal it, perhaps too focused on the problem they were facing to let himself be distracted by something else.

"Now, can you tell me what's wrong here Damian?" Ash was quick to ask, getting the first words in, before anyone else had the time to speak.

"Danea's not doing well at all. Apparently she tried to kill herself a few times in the last four or five days." Ash stood aghast for an instant, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him. When they had left her a few weeks before Danea was on the path toward being better, now they came back only to learn she was beyond the edge of despair? It was hard to believe, and enough to make him understand why his father was panicking.

"Any idea why?" He walked toward the door, hoping someone could come up with a way to help.

"Seems to be the same thing that was depressing her last time...I don't know why it came back so hard...though it must be something pretty bad to take...Oh, damn. That's another thing. We were kidnapped by a bunch of thugs on our way here. Elayne saved us, but not before they had the time to start...having fun...with Sabrina and Melody. Sabrina seems to be taking it in stride, but Melody is very badly shaken." Ash muttered a few oaths at the news, this certainly was not anything close to what they needed.

"If I had them right in front of me right now..." Misty was muttering darkly, her cloak pushed slightly back as she played with the hilt of her sword.

"I already took care of them. Shot in the neck, all three." Elayne had a vicious smile, one that Ash could understand. As far as he was concerned, the rapists had gotten what they had been after, though he wondered how Elayne had managed to shoot them - she certainly was no specialist of any ranged weapon when they had split.

"Oh, yeah. That's another thing." Damian seemed to have a lot to tell as they made their way inside. "Elayne's the huntress, it seems." 

Again, Ash shook his head, slowly, trying to keep track of all the information he had been given in the last few minutes, as another hard to believe new, though not as disastrous as what Damian had told him before, fell on him. 

"Are you sure there's nothing else you're forgetting?" He elected to ask, deciding that it was better to go over all the shock now than to have to wait for more information.

"Well, I found a stone that will help for finding the rest of the nine - though admittedly with Jessie and James, we're down to three of them to find." The young man stopped, thinking for a moment. "I think that's it. Any big new on your side?"

"Not really." Ash shook his head. Beyond Jessie and James being part of the nine, which Damian obviously already knew, there was not much for them to say.

"Ash! There you are at last!" The voice came from up the stairs, and Ash turned, not surprised to find his father waiting. "I thought we might as well pull everyone here. Maybe one of us will find what's wrong with her...she's getting more depressed each day, and nothing we can do help her..." He shook his head, utter helplessness appearing in his eyes. "It's almost like someone is pushing her along...Sabrina and Tanya are trying to prevent her from using her psychic powers for anything foolish, they are too busy with that to actually try to find out what's wrong...it's...I don't know...one of you has to find a way to help...you just have to...." His voice shook with worry, he no longer was the proud leader of the state of Kanto, now he was a brother worried about his sister.

"We'll do what we can dad. I promise." The words were not empty, they were meant, and the promise was meant just as well. Danea had cared for Ash when he had lost his mother, he would do anything he could to help her.

Climbing upstairs, a desolating sight awaited them in Danea's room. Ash's aunt was tied to the bed, Tanya at her side, her eyes glowing with a blue light, the sign that she was obviously restraining Danea from doing anything crazy with her mind as the rope restrained her body.

"That bad?" Ash asked his father incredulously, being careful to make sure his voice did not carry to the bed were Danea was, her eyes empty of all life, all thought.

"And worst. She nearly managed to break through Sabrina's shield once or twice. Tanya's better, she know her mother's tricks." Lance's voice was tense as they all surveyed the situation. "As for the ropes, she used to run away whenever she had a chance before. We had to stop it, there are a few too many cliffs nearby.

"There's something wrong here." The voice was Misty's, yet not. It was calmer, wiser than Misty's usual voice. Ash turned to face her, to find that her eyes had turned fully black, an inky darkness that seemed to spread like a fog around her eyes, almost like the glow of psychic powers being used, but yet different. "I feel a power at work...it's odd...familiar..." 

"Misty?" Ash turned toward her, wondering what she was talking about. 

"Wait a minute Ash...could someone get Sabrina? I need her to check something for me...and if you want explanations about what I'm doing, you'd better ask Fenrir."

Ash nodded briefly, as Damian raced out of the room as fast as he could. The dark wolf appeared from the tip of the blade, and as soon as he appeared his eyes turned toward Misty. He stared intently at her for a long moment, his eyes at first puzzled, then awed as recognition seemed to dawn on him.

"It has been a long time..." he whispered softly, something that those few who could hear the sound only heard as a whimpering, save for Ash who understood.

"What is it?" He asked, worried now about both Misty and Danea.

"It's long to explain. Basically put, she has psychic powers. From what I've been told by Celes, I'd say that has to do with the mental possession. Having all those powers channeled through her probably gave her some of her owns." 

"Danea mentioned as much..." Ash still could not see what Fenrir was getting at, still had no idea what was going on as he looked worriedly in turn at his aunt and at the woman he loved.

"Well, then to put it bluntly, instead of having her powers develop as normal psychic powers, they developed in the other end of the spectrum - dark powers. That's what dark pokemon are - or were. Psychics who, instead of trying to learn to use their power as a mean of domination and war, tried to turn them in a way to counter the power of other psychics. So we can sense easily any psychic at work, and we are immune to psychic powers."

The explanation was long, but it made sense, also explaining to a certain extent the frost between Esper and Fenrir. The two of them tended to avoid each other when they could, when they could not they spoke with short sentence. 

"Anyway. Her powers developed in dark powers instead of psychic powers - subconsciously, probably. She wasn't training for it or any such, it's just that her brain wanted to be safe from possession, I guess, so it built up the defenses." Fenrir shook his head, looking at Misty. "And she's right. Someone's doing this to your aunt, definitely. She probably was depressed already without anyone intervening, but someone is pushing her down an oiled slope."

Ash smiled at the image, then his face darkened again. That Danea had been depressed already before meant that even if they broke the mental assault, she would not recover on her own. But on the other hand, if she stopped slipping, then perhaps their attempts at cheering her up would be effective. Perhaps, but it was unlikely.

"So that's what it is then." Sabrina's voice came from the doorway, and for an instant Ash wondered how she had found out, before realizing that it had been no harder than pulling the information out of his mind. He shuddered a little at the idea of his thought being left bare for her to see, knowing there were some things in his mind that he would rather keep private. "Can either of you find a way to guide me? I really can't feel the mental attack..." she shook her head, looking in turn at Misty then at Fenrir. The wolf pokemon nodded, his eyes suddenly filled with the same darkness that came out of Misty's usually pretty eyes. A strange dark rope began to appear , coming out of Danea's head, and Sabrina focused in turn, her own eyes glowing. 

At first, the glow was dim, and Sabrina seemed to falter. Ash managed to keep her from falling, and to help her regain her footing. She was tired, it was easy to understand that she would have problems maintaining her footing. 

The second try went better ,blue light blazing forth from her finger to encase the dark cable, not destroying or severing it, but rather, almost making it solid, tangible - present in the waking word. It definitely was, in fact what she was doing. In a sudden flash of understanding, Ash drew his sword, and with one quick strike hacked at the dark rope that fell apart, unraveling as the steel touched it, the little strands of darkness vanishing like little cloud of smokes in a strong wind.

"It's gone." Misty stated as soon as the dark link unraveled, breathing a sigh of relief, Fenrir nodding in agreement a second later. Ash returned his blade to its sheath, feeling a bit more hopeful. Things were no longer as bleak. Now, if they could find some way to cheer up Danea, there was a way of bringing her back, she was no longer being pushed down the slope.

"I think the best thing to do now would be to send her to the psychiatric hospital in Saffron..." Sabrina's voice was sad, reluctant. She was not willing to admit that she could think of no other way, that much was all too obvious.

"Not just yet..." Lance objected. "There is one thing, a7t least one idea I want to try before we do that. Something we should have done long ago. Just keep her alive for a few days..."

Chapter 13 : Renewal

Lance would not tell them of his plan, simply that all he needed was a few more day to convince someone to come and help, and to let that person attempt to help. Whether or not this was a good idea, Ash had no idea. Personally, considering the fact that Sabrina and Tanya were all growing very tired, relaying each other in a psychic watch over Danea, keeping her from using her powers as best as they could. Once or twice, Ash had been tempted to mention that Misty might be able to help, but he had elected against it. It was Misty's choice to reveal that she could help, if she thought she could.

As he installed himself on a couch in the living room, using his cloak as a blanket, he tried to guess what his father was planning. However, no matter how hard he tried, there was no way for him to guess. Simply put, he would have to wait and see, no matter how much he disliked the idea.

Sleep took a long time to come that day, after the events and revelation of the last few hours. When it came however, it was a sleepless, restful sleep, the sleep of the tired. In the middle of the night, an hand shook his shoulder gently, and Ash opened his eyes quickly. Misty was there, beside him, her face worried.

"What is it Misty?" He asked her.

"I don't know…there's something odd outside. I thought I'd ask you to tell me what you think of it…" She was not frightened, more puzzled than anything.

"All right. Did you ask Damian to come? He does know a lot about things, he might be able to explain…"

"Yeah, I know. I already asked him." She looked outside. "It's really weird…there's that bird that's been circling the house for the last few hours…it feels odd…" She shook her head again.

"A bird? I think I'll come too…if it's a threat, you'd better have someone ready to shoot it." Elayne's voice came from the door. Ash turned to face her, wondering for a moment if he had been the only one sleeping in the house. 

They walked outside, silently opening and closing the door so as to let those who actually slept rest. He noticed, as they left, that Elayne held her bow, that Misty had her hand ready to draw her sword just as he did. Misty's odd feeling apparently was worrying them all, perhaps the unconscious feeling of a threat coming toward them.

Damian was already outside, peering at the darkness, at the slightly darker form of the bird only visible when it would pass between a star and them. 

"That's a pidgey. But pidgeys aren't nocturnal creatures. Somethings is weird here." He said as soon as the three of them joined him, his eyes not leaving the being a single instant.

"Then it has a reason for being outside at this time." Elayne drew her bow swiftly, not even letting them the time to protest, releasing an arrow in the night. 

"The bird might have a perfectly good and innocent reason to be there you know…" Misty pointed out quickly, though she obviously did not believe it any more than Elayne herself did. Her feeling was obviously that they were facing a threat.

Struck in the middle of his flight, the creature fell to the ground, enshrouded by darkness as it felt. Damian swore.

"Avaraen. That arrow won't even do any permanent damage. And it's a threat, definitely." He certainly was not happy about the discovery, and though Ash had only a foggy idea what an Avaraen was – from old legend he had heard when he was little about soul-stealing creatures – he could guess that it was not good news.

"Damn."" Elayne swore as well, looking at the shadow enclosing the Pidgey down on the ground, a darkness deeper than that of the night around them.

"We'd better get back to the house and warn the others. That might be trouble." Misty was the first to offer any intelligent advice, and Ash could only agree with her. If Avaraen were after them, it was yet another factor to be taken in consideration as for their future plans.

"Yeah. It was definitely here for us. Syraelle is at it again, I'd say." Damian's face looked dark and brooding in the shadow-filled night. "Let's get back. There's no way to know how many Avaraen she sent after us."

Ash nodded briefly as they all raced toward the house, looking around them warily. They each took some time to sleep, but not all of them at once, maintaining a constant guard to ward off any attack that would come, if there were. Nothing came that night, however, and as the next morning dawned, Lance came to them with good news.

"I've managed to convince my friend to come here. He should arrive in a few hours." He told them quickly.

"Who?" Ash asked, but no matter how much they pressed him to tell more about his plan, he would remain silent, refusing to reveal even the slightest bit of information. By noon, the sound of a motor was heard on the road, a few minutes later, a car was stopping in the drive way of the house, 

The figure stepping out of the car was familiar, that of someone Ash knew very well. Misty and Damian were the most surprised at the idea, but Ash had to admit that if there was a way to shock Danea out of depression, the one his father had thought up was probably the best. Not to mention that the possibility that it would bring at last a sense of closure to the events of fifteen years ago could not be ignored.

Giovanni, however, did not share either Ash's nor Lance's enthusiasm about the plan. Damian had mentioned back when they had learned of the story of Danea that his father still blamed himself for what had happened, that much was very obvious in his eyes.

"I don't think it's a good idea…for me, and for her." Were his first words to Lance as he entered. "It will just remind her of what happened, and…"

"And she's already bad enough as is…if this doesn't work, she's going to the psychiatric hospital in Saffron. Do you really want that?"

"No…I guess not…but…" He shook his head. "How did you know? That I never stopped loving her?" He glared accusingly at Lance. "You're using it to manipulate me. How did you guess?"

"You wouldn't blame yourself that hard over it if those feelings were gone Gio. And as far as I'm concerned, that's the only way the depression will ever end for either of you." Lance's eyes were hard, his voice, commanding. He was no longer the withdrawn, polite man that Ash was used to, but now he was the Kanto chief of state, one of the most powerful men in the world, and readily using that authority.

"I'll do it. I don't know what it will do for results, but I'll do it." Giovanni nodded finally, though he still seemed very reluctant. Giovanni guided him upstairs, asking Tanya who was on guard duty again to step out of the room before he let Giovanni in.

As she left, she glared briefly at Giovanni, their eyes meeting, and Ash realized suddenly that this was yet another link he had missed – Tanya was Giovanni's half-sister, something that had escaped his notice until now. The two apparently had no love lost for each other, Tanya reminding Giovanni too much of the tragedy and of his father, Giovanni reminding Tanya too much of their father just as well, perhaps a symbol of the events that had led to her birth, and above that the events that had led to her mother being depressed so often.

"Keep an eye on them both Tanya." Lance ordered as Giovanni stepped in the room. "Act if you think there is a need. But don't go and trouble your brother for no reason. I know you don't like him, but really…"

Tanya nodded, though her face was dark, her eyes flashing with anger.

_______________________

Giovanni stepped slowly in the room, reluctant to face the events of sixteen, nearly seventeen years ago. At first he had only blamed himself, spending nearly a year in isolation, eating only when he needed to. When the year had ended, it had only been for him to end the nightmare and kill the real monster – his father. But the guilt had not vanished then.

He could have prevented it all. He knew his father was not to be trusted, yet he had stupidly delivered Danea in his grasp. The monster that had raped Danea was dead, but the failure than had betrayed her, even without knowing he was doing so, that failure still lived.

He nearly elected to run, not bothering Danea who was turned away from him, her hand bound behind her back, her feet tightly held by solid rope. He could not face her, not after what had happened, not after what he had done. He could not face her after failing her like that. For the last fourteen, fifteen years almost, he had kept himself busy, working all the time he could to make Team Rocket what it had been first meant, not what his father had made it into. At first he had only helped his mother who's aim was much the same, when she had died soon after her husband, Giovanni had taken control, working almost all the time, simply to avoid thinking.

He put his hand on the handle of the door, unable to take the idea of facing her after what he had done. He would leave, he would go away…there would have to be another way for Danea to heal, he just could not take facing her.

He turned, for one last look, his heart crushed by the pain of what she had gone through because of him. All because he was an idiot, all because he had been too naive to understand what his father really was after. 

And then he froze. A new voice spoke from inside, not the voice of fear, not the voice of guilt...Danea was still as beautiful, even more maybe, as she had been on that day. Even there, her body frail from not eating, weakened by days of despair, there was still a strange kind of beauty to her, one that touched the depths of his hearth. 

He had betrayed her, he had failed to be there when she needed him once already. There was no way he would survive doing so again, and now she needed him, perhaps as much as she had on that day, such a long time ago. At least he could only hope he was what she needed, he could only hope that Lance was right. 

She slowly turned toward him, her eyes filled with bitter despair, red from weeping too much. Shock at seeing him, then fear. He almost wanted to break down and run again, as the fear took him again, but then her eyes changed, from fear and remembered pain to relief.

"Why are you here?" Her voice was weak, but to him it was a melody of wonder. That she was willing to speak to him was more than he had hoped for, after how much she had avoided him since that day.

"Because I wanted…I don't know…because Lance told me you were depressed, that you had tried to kill youself…and somehow…I just couldn't let that happen." He shook his head, for the second time that day admitting how much she still meant to him.

"I thought you hated me…I thought the whole world hated me…" she shook her head in turn…

"How can you say that?" Giovanni was quick to reply. "Look at everyone who's here to help you…Tanya, Sabrina, Lance, Ash, Misty, Damian, Elayne…they're all there…they all took the time to come and help you instead of looking for the rest of the nine. Would they do that if they hated you?"

"Why are they wasting their time…for me? It's not like I'm worth it…I'm worth nothing. Don't you see? I couldn't even defend myself. And now I distract them from what they should be doing, I worry them all to no end…" she shook her head.

"You're wrong, you know. To us all, you're worth it. More than worth it. They think you are worth the sacrifice…" he left it hanging.

"I don't know why…I'm pathetic…and you? Why are you here? I thought you were too busy working and all…" She seemed to be afraid of his answer, somehow.

"I'm here…" He hesitated. He could lie, he could tell her the truth. Reluctantly, he opted for the second choice, knowing it was what she needed. "Remember how I once told you you were worth every sacrifice I could think of?" she nodded slowly, "I still think of you that way…you are still worth that to me. More than that."

She seemed stunned for a moment. She had not expected that answer, he was sure. "I…I thought you'd hate me…after what happened…that's why I've been avoiding you since then…I'm so sorry…" his voice shook, tears that had not come to him since that day returning, healing tears, tears of self-forgiveness.

"Do…do you really mean it?" She seemed afraid again, worried beyond worry. But this time it was almost positive she was not worried that he had told the truth, but worried that he would answer no to her recent question. He was not the only one who had kept the feeling alive, though buried deep, it seemed.

"I really do." A short answer, but one that seemed to carry a greater impact than any thousand words.

There was no smile on her face, but a little breath of life seemed to return in her empty eyes, a single spark of light in the middle of the darkness they had become.

"I thought you hated me…I was so sure you hated me…I didn't want to face you because of that…it would have been too hard…." Her whole body shook as she wept, but in the middle of her tears, the smallest of smile appeared on her face, like a single ray of sunlight in the middle of a rainstorm. "I…I've been so alone…I mean…there were people who cared about me and all…but everything was empty…dark…cold…."

He let his hand rest on her shoulder, and she looked at him. There was light again in her eyes, definitely. A sliver of hope where there had only been despair.

"Don't worry Danea. If you want…if you want I'll be there for you. To keep you warm, to give you some light…to make sure you're never alone again…" He gently caressed her hair, and her tense body seemed to relax, if only a little. "If you want."

"I…I'd like that…I want to have you with me." She moved closer to him despite the rope that held her, managing to worm her way closer, in a position where he could at least hold her close to him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, wanting for her to feel only warmth and love. He reached behind her back, slowly undoing the knots in the rope that held her hand. Her smile grew a little as the rope fell away, as she wrapped her arms around him, letting her head rest on his shoulder, a few tears coming still from her eyes.

"Thank you Gio. Thank you." She whispered as she clung to him.

_______________________________

"She's sleeping now." Giovanni told them all as he left the room, smiling at all of them. "And I think she'll be alright."

"And from your smile I'd guess you two are finally back where you belong – and that's together?" Lance grinned at his friend, and Ash could not help but smile. 

"You're too good at judging human nature Lance. But yeah, we're back together. Thank you." Giovanni shook his head. "Once you resign from being the Kanto chief of state, maybe you should consider a career as a matchmaker. You're fairly good at it." Giovanni grinned as Lance smiled. 

"I'll think about it." Lance laughed, as they all at least grinned or else laughed readily – all except Sabrina who of course was still sleeping and Melody who only briefly smiled. She still was shaken by the events that had taken place, though not nearly as badly as Damian told them she had been immediately after. It was something that would have to be taken care of, another worry on top of all they had to take care of already. Damian did not laugh either, he was not there. He had decided to go outside for a while only a moment ago, and not even reminding him of the encounter with the Avaraen the night before had convinced him to change his mind. 

"I untied her, since she was better, too. I'm glad you thought up that idea Lance. I just couldn't have taken failing her again like that. If she had killed herself…" he shook his head sadly. "She's lucky to have a brother like you.

They all went to sit down in the living room, the danger that they all had gathered to fight finally averted, Danea at last safe from the despair.

Chapter 14 : Revelations

The great trees surrounded them, tall shapes standing defiant under the early night sky. The air was cool, but not cold, fresh but not freezing. The moon was clear, no clouds hiding her round shape from the world. Damian let his hand rest on one of the great trees, waiting.

"So. I managed to surprise you for once, I see." The voice that was Enaira's came to him before long, and Damian turned to face her. He had known she wanted to talk with him, had gone outside with the very purpose of meeting her, and having a quick chat with her about the situation.

"True. I did not expect you to twist destiny to weave destiny to bring these two together." That much was true, he had certainly not expected that much kindness from Enaira, and was still a bit stunned to find that she had done that.

"I didn't do much. All I did was help Lance convince Giovanni to come over here. They deserves it, being happy. They did a lot for our cause." She smiled briefly.

"I never thought you cared about happiness of those who served you." The reply was ever so slightly bitter, a bitterness that came from the knowledge of certain death.

"Aren't you happy with Elayne now?" She shot back, smiling slightly.

"It's hard to be happy when you don't even have a year left to live. Especially when you know that for a fact." He shook his head sadly.

"I'd have thought you'd enjoy everything that much more. Knowing you won't be able to enjoy it that long..." she smiled again.

"It's not really fun, thinking every time I do something or see someone that chances are I'll never do it or see that person again." He replied, his resolution to accept fate slowly fading. He did not want to die, not anymore, there was no use lying about it.

"That's a good point. But everyone has to wonder that whenever they do something. Death is part of being human."

"But not knowing over a year ahead the exact day of your death - not unless you are planning to kill yourself on that day." 

"How can you be so sure death will be the end Damian?" She changed her aim suddenly, and he stopped for a moment, rethinking what he was about to say.

"Isn't it?"

"Not really. Death isn't that much of an end. I'd even venture to say it isn't an end at all. But then, I never died, so I wouldn't know." She grinned slightly, and Damian muttered, reminding himself again that debating the mysteries of life with a Goddess who knew the exact truth was one of the most frustrating experience to go through.

"Cheater." He accused softly.

"I can't cheat. Us gods get to set the rules, so if I do something it just can't be cheating." She smiled again.

"That's not fair!" He protested, his mood made a little better by the bantering. Enaira, as different from a human as she was, still could act like one, teasing like anyone else.

"Of course it isn't. Being a god isn't about being fair, it's about making sure things are the way you want them to be."

"So you want me to die?" He asked her, knowing very well she was trapped now.

"No. That's Tremayne and Leilia who blackmailed me in making sure the seeker always die."

"I thought being a god was about getting things the way you wanted them?" he shot back.

"Yeah, but when you got two other gods, bigger than you and carrying three swords between the two of them on either sides of you, what you want is usually what they want."

"And that still means you want me dead." He insisted, trying to prove her logic wrong.

"Not now. Back then when we agreed I didn't know you, so I couldn't want you dead. I only wanted me alive." She brushed aside the distinction, and Damian felt the sadness returning. No amount of bantering could hide that he would die all too soon. He curled up on the ground, and for the first time since he had learned of what would happen, let himself weep.

He felt Enaira's hand on his shoulder, then felt himself slowly drifting asleep.

Left alone with the sleeping young man, Enaira watched him sadly, for a brief moment letting her hand rest on his shoulder still. A soft light came from her finger, leaving her and going in him, something she would never tell him about, not for now, and, hopefully, something he'd never have to find out about. If there was, as she suspected, need for him to find out about the gift, or perhaps the curse, she would not be around to mention it.

"Sleep well Damian. You might think that your journey will end soon...but it isn't even started yet. I'm sorry for having to do that to you. More than I ever could say." She held his head for a moment, like a mother would hold the head of her child, then slowly walked away, letting him wake up, leaving in his mind the knowledge he would need to overcome the next few trials.

_________________________

They were all gathered in the living room of the house, even Melody who seemed to be much better now, improving steadily from the state of despair she had been in upon their arrival, according to Elayne and Damian. Only Danea, sleeping, and Damian, walking outside, were not there.

"I still don't get it. If the boss is your father, and if that girl he's hanging around with is your aunt, wouldn't that make the two of you related?" Jessie's voice asked as she faced in turn Misty and then Ash.

"Not really. See, is Giovanni - sorry, I mean, the boss - a relative of Ash right now?" Lance asked, a small smile on his face.

"Well...Not that I know..." James admitted.

"See? Maybe they'll be relatives by wedding, but that's it, and that means nothing. They aren't related in the sense of having common ancestors or any such." He continued, and Ash sighed in relief, bringing Misty closer to him. As happy as he was for Danea and Giovanni, if their situation had muddled the water in his relationship with Misty he would have been rather depressed over it. Fortunately, it did not appear to cause any trouble, and Ash could only hope that would stay the same.

Damian came back just then, his eyes red from weeping, eyes that also seemed to know the time had come for something, for a truth to be revealed. In an instant of realization, Ash knew what it was that he meant to tell them.

"Misty, Elayne, Ash, Sabrina, Jessie, James, Melody come with me please. I have something to tell you all." His voice was determinate.

"All right..." Misty did not hesitate much before answering. Sabrina, who had awakened and was sitting with them all, nodded.

"I'm coming too. I want to know that it is you're going to talk about." Tanya's voice objected rapidly.

"Now look, this doesn't concern you Tanya..." Damian started to protest, only to be cut off by her reply.

"Don't you dare try to order your aunt around Damian. I'm going to hear what you have to say." Ash almost laughed as she spoke. She had been reluctant at first to acknowledge the link between the three of them - Misty, Damian and herself - but now she apparently was ready to use it to her full advantage.

"Oh, well....You might as well come..." Damian shrugged. Rather than having all of them leaving, Lance offered to leave himself, letting them speak all they wanted. Damian soon began.

"All right. Most of you know about the prophecies, right?" 

They all nodded, even Jessie and James, even Tanya. 

"I've heard Lance mention them a few time to my mother. And then, you haven't exactly be careful not to talk about them around me the last time you were here." She grinned, a triumphant grin.

"Good. For starters, I am the seeker." He reminded those of them who already knew, telling those who had yet to learn about it.

"I guessed as much." Tanya smiled again, a sweet smile this time, but one that carried still a sense of triumph.

"All right. Then do you know of the four signs? And Tanya, please try to avoid those smart comments of yours." He looked at them in turn, one after the other. Tanya did not reply, the others nodded. Finally, she nodded as well, muttering words that Ash could not make out clearly, something he was thankful for, knowing the foul temper of his cousin.

"Well then, to put it simply, the fourth sing is that "The one who search will leave". Someone who search something is a seeker. And in the prophecies, leaving means death." He let it out in a single breath, bluntly, and even Ash who already knew had to admit that said in this way, it was still surprising.

"I'm going to die before the end of the year. No way around it." he finished.

The information took a moment to sink in, a moment were all of them stood frozen, disbelieving, except Ash and Sabrina. Ash, of course, already knew, and Sabrina probably had suspected it for the longest time, being one of the most intelligent members of the party, if not the most intelligent.

"Please...tell me you're joking...please Damian..." Elayne was first to speak, moving closer to him.

"I wish I could joke about that. No, I'm serious." Damian shook his head, a bitter smile on his lips. Ash sighed, the price of destiny was too heavy for him to like it. It would be yet another friend lost, after Gary, after Richie.

"No...it just...not you..." Misty seemed as shocked and as devastated as Elayne. Ash moved closer to her, hugging her tightly, letting her head rests on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Damian...If I had known you were going to tell us about that...I wouldn't have tried to be smart or to force you to let me in." Tanya's white-haired head lowered slightly, and Ash almost had the impression she was weeping.

"Don't worry about it Tanya...I guess it was only normal that you didn't want to be excluded..." Damian spoke, turning away from Elayne, who was weeping, her head resting on his shoulder as her body shook gently.

"Now...there's something else. I'm telling you now for a reason. I don't want you all to start crying and all when it happens - there won't be time for that. After I'm dead, you'll have to fight. The Time of Twilight - or the Time of Destiny, depend on how you want to call it." he looked at each of them in turn. "And please don't take it that hard...I have it on good authority that we'll all meet again after that." He smiled, and Ash looked at him curiously, wondering why he revealed something that he obviously had been told by some divinity. Sabrina moved around them, her eyes glowing and slight whispers of energy coming whenever she touched any of them. She was easing the pain, Ash knew, even the pain of Damian or himself, a pain he had not really noticed but which had been there for the past few months, in the back of his mind, he was now realizing.

"Yeah but..." Misty started to protest, then stopped, her eyes filling with something else - not shock, not horror, bur realization - a dark realization.

"I just thought of something guys." She mentioned rapidly, though her voice was still a bit shaky, her eyes still filled with unspent tears, tears like those that had reddened them.

"What is it?" Elayne asked, still weeping, if only a little.

"It's about Danea. We know someone wanted her to be depressed and all. But why? Why do it to her? It makes no sense." She shook her head. Apparently, she was trying very hard to give them all something to think about - and it was something she herself had been thinking about already.

"Do you have an explanation?" Ash asked her quickly.

"Not just yet, but I think I'm on the verge of something right now...it makes no sense to try to get at Danea herself. So whoever did it..."

"Was trying to get at someone through her." Sabrina had stopped easing the pain and was apparently considering Misty's words.

"That would be Lance, Giovanni, or us." Ash pointed out.

"Or all that." Damian pointed out in turn, still holding Elayne tightly.

"Friends of Butch and Cassidy after getting us all? We were all involved in their fall..." James suggested, and Ash was stunned that the ex-rocket, which he had always considered a bit on the dumb side, had made such a perceptive comment.

"Syraelle would be my bet." Elayne's voice was hard, as she apparently did everything she could to push aside and forget the pain of knowing she and Damian would part way soon. "Remember that Avaraen we shot down last night?"

"Makes sense. But somehow...it doesn't feel right to say she was trying to kill Danea to get at us. She could have killed her plenty of other ways. So why that one?" Damian pointed out.

"Damn it!" Ash suddenly swore, the picture becoming clear in his eyes.

"What is it?" All of them asked at once, turning toward him.

"A trap. And Danea was the bait. Which we took. Syraelle wanted to get us there, she's probably going to pin us down here, or attack the house and capture us now."

"That works. It makes sense - it makes a lot of sense. Misty, any Avaraen nearby?" Damian turned toward his sister.

"I'll check." Her eyes became dark as she seemed to look through the wall of the house, finding the shadows all around them. When the darkness vanished from her eyes, they were serious.

"So?" Damian quickly asked, though from her face they all already knew the answer, or at least Ash did.

"Plenty of them. We're surrounded." Her reply was short.

"Now why am I not surprised?" Tanya muttered softly. "She'll pay though. I might not get to kill the guy who did that to my mother...but that Syraelle of yours is sure going to pay for both of them." The fires of revenge were in her eyes as she looked at them all in turn.

Giovanni and Lance joined them at that moment, and Ash did not doubt they had heard the last part of their discussion. Their faces were bleak, too, that of men who knew the situation was not good for them, and who were ready to fight, too.

"That Syraelle also got all communications down. She doesn't want us to get help." Lance reported quickly, toying with the handles of his swords.

"We'll just show her. For now, I'd say the best is to get some rest - but to make sure one of us is always up.

They all agreed and took their places, ready to go to sleep. Lance elected to take the first turn with Giovanni, while Ash and Misty volunteered to take the next round, Damian and Elayne the one after, Jessie and James the fourth, and the last one would be for Sabrina and Tanya.

They gathered for sleep in one room, all of them huddling close, the need for warmth - human warmth - coming from both the deadly situation they were now in, forced on deadly ground by Syraelle, and from the announcement by Damian. Elayne fell asleep in the arms of Damian, just as Misty and Ash slept side by side, their love offering what protections it could form an outside world that fought them for all it was worth. Even Jessie and James moved closer to each other, confirming suspicions Ash had long had about them. Only Tanya, Melody and Sabrina remained alone, though even them moved closer to the rest of the group.

Chapter 15 : Under Siege

There were no assaults that night, and it seemed that Syraelle or whoever it was who was attacking them was perfectly satisfied with keeping them pinned down. It was, Ash had to admit, an effective strategy, as there was no time to waste, and as it was they were forced to waste a lot of time.

He sat in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the window, Misty nearby. Both of them had their swords drawn now, Fang and Crest ready to strike at anyone who would come. Damian sat near them, looking over maps of the region, planning an escape route perhaps. Elayne was not too far, and whenever she moved, she held her bow in one hand, an arrow already out of the quiver and ready to shoot.

The others were all over the house, but soon would return to the kitchen. They had taken a few hours to examine the situation, now they would put all that they had found out together in an attempt, perhaps hopeless, at coming up with a valid escape plan.

Peering at the window, Ash could see no shadow in the outside world, but one look at Misty confirmed to him that they were there, just beyond sight, perhaps in the wood, perhaps in a small crevice. They were there, there was no doubt about it.

"Any sign of them?" Damian asked from the stairs where he sat now, after walking all around the house, making sure there were no open window, no open door, no way for them to get in.

"Nothing yet." Ash answered, keeping a wary eye out. He had heard of what Avaraen could do, and had no desire to experience it personally.

"Good. Or maybe not that good. I'd rather face them in the day than in the middle of the night..." Damian shook his head.

"I'd rather not face them at all." Ash countered, and Damian smiled.

"I'm afraid that's not an option we have." 

"I never asked if we could do it, I just said that was what I'd rather do." He shot back.

Sabrina walked down the stairs, holding the wooden handrail tightly with her left hand. She was careful not to make any sound, those stair creaked quite easily, and she apparently did not want to disturb all the others who were busy trying to get a better idea of the situation.

"That hater is out there." She reported in her old, flat voice. The rape attempt had forced her to go back to her emotionless self, and Ash was not sure at all it was a positive change. She was forgetting how to feel again, he was sure, and if she went too far in that, her powers would once again control her instead of the other way around.

"You're sure?" Damian asked, jumping up without care for the noises and turning to face her.

"As sure as I can be. He's out there."

"Syraelle is there too, then. They were together when they ambushed us." Damian was quick to point out.

"Good point. Are the others coming down now?" He turned toward Sabrina.

"I'd say they are. Lance stopped to go talk to Giovanni and Danea, but that's it."

"I'm here" Elayne was coming down the stair in turn, her eyes still a bit sad, though determinate as well. The threat to their life and their success had managed to push other worries to the back of her mind, but not completely. She moved close to Damian, wrapping her arms tightly around him in a fierce hug.

"So am I." Lance was half a step behind, tall and grim, eyes hard as stone. "Tanya was just behind me."

She arrived a second or two later, long white hair offering a sharp contrast to her long black coat. Her lavender eyes were flaring with an angry inner light.

"All right. What do we do?" Lance turned to face them all, the question coming from his lips as soon as they were gathered. Melody had joined them silently from the living room where she was waiting.

"We find a way to get out of here." Damian replied without even pausing to think.

"What a brilliant idea." Lance retorted blandly. "Any idea how to accomplish that?"

"Don't fight please. We need to work together, not to fight." Melody interrupted them, looking at each of them in turn, her eyes pleading.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Lance gave in quickly, his voice remorseful. "I shouldn't have snapped, it's just that I hate the situation."

"We all do." The answer came from Sabrina, standing by the stairways still.

"They are sure to have flying pokemon possessed to block the way above..." Elayne stated, peering at the map of the terrain that was left lying on the table.

"Yeah, at least I would if I was in charge of that siege."

"So flying out of here is out of the way." Misty concluded.

"Yeah, I think so. Charging out and trying to break through the siege?" Damian suggested.

"Risky. There's no telling how many of us would die if we try that." Misty pointed out the obvious weakness of the plan, sighing as she did so.

"What else can we do?" Damian objected.

"I might have an idea, but I need to think about it for now." Ash stated, the faintest hint of what might turn out to be a plan forming in his mind.

"Why don't you mention it to us?" Lance objected, looking quickly at his son.

"Later." Ash simply answered, thinking about his idea more and more.

It had potential, that much could not be denied. With enough flying pokemon, they could pull it off - if he was right and there was a way to disable the Avaraen, if only for a short while.

"Damian, is there a way to disable those Avaraen for a short while?" he asked suddenly.

"They are weaker at day." Damian nodded, confirming what Ash already suspected.

"All right. And would a huge blast of day light in the middle of the night weaken them?"

"A lot. The combination of surprise and light would probably disable them for a while." The young man nodded, surprised.

"Good."

"Even if you disable the flying pokemon they captured, that will leave Syraelle and all the other humans with her free to fight. They might be able to shoot at us in some way." 

That much was true, but no matter how hard he tried to find one, Ash could not find a way about it. If Syraelle felt them leaving, she would act, and that could prove extremely disastrous.

But there had to be a way to fool her, somehow. Some way to get out without her noticing it, that she would not know they had left until it was too late. Perhaps Sabrina and Tanya - maybe even Danea, too - could use their own powers to create mental decoys, or perhaps she could be fooled in thinking they were dead. Perhaps there was a way to make them all untouchable to mental probes...

"Sabrina, is there a way you can keep Syralle from locating us with her powers?" Turning toward her, he let out the question.

"Might be...I'd have to think about it, and experiment a bit. I'll go ask Danea to help. Tanya, can you come too?" She left immediately, running upstairs as fast as she could, Tanya reluctantly following.

"All right." Facing his friends, Ash spoke to them again. "If they work out something, I have a plan to get us out."

They asked him to explain the plan, but he refused. Knowing that there were chances Sabrina would fail, he would not tell them of his plan and give them too many false hopes, get them worked up about it, until he knew for a fact that there were chances they could at least try it.

Hours went by slowly, all of them waiting, their hands on blades, arrows or spears as a minute went by, then another. They were ready, in case Syraelle changed her plan and made it an attack, but they all doubted she would dare to try that. If she had wanted to attack, she would have done so at night, taking advantage of the strengths of her Avaraen.

On the other hand, if she wanted to achieve a maximal surprise effect, she could attack in the middle of the day, but that was doubtful at best. The advantage gained by surprise would be badly outweighed by the weakness of attacking at day for Avaraen.

"I don't think she'll come." Standing by the door, hidden and peering over the small door window, Misty had her sword drawn.

"We'd better be careful though." Jessie replied from her vantage point, her hand on the handle of her long sword, a blade seemingly pulsating with an inner fire.

"Yeah." James nodded besides her, his spear ready to strike out, though it was still in staff mode. 

"I don't think she'll attack at all. If she can keep us pinned down here, she win by default." Damian's voice was tense with worry. Looking over one of the window, the young man was definitely starting to be angered by the situation.

More time went past, an hour then another. The atmosphere of the house was tense, as they all waited for an assault that would never come. A single spark could create a fight, a few did occurs. Lance and Damian again, over stating the obvious. Melody and Misty, when the later tried to calm her down, as she was starting to shake again, no doubt remembering the events of her last encounter with Syraelle. Ash himself fighting with Elayne when she challenged him, pretending the only reason he would not reveal his plan was that he had none.

They all apologized soon, realizing before the fights were even over that they were being silly, but still, the unity was slowly drifting, vanishing without them being able to do a thing about it. If it continued, Syraelle would not need to attack, they would defeat themselves without any work from her more than keeping them pinned down.

"Guys, I thought the enemy was outside..." Giovanni was first to point out loud what Ash had started to think about. He had joined them when the three psychic had started experimenting upstairs.

"Shut up." Lance's reply was rapid and incisive, the reply of someone not to be trifled with.

"Geez, you'd think you didn't invite me here, and that I'm on the other side." His voice was hurt.

"Well..." Opening his mouth to reply, Lance stood silent for a moment. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a bit stressed out right now." He finally said, ending yet another little skirmish, perhaps the smallest so far.

With Giovanni there, the fighting reduced, not in the sense that fewer fights occurred, but in that they were stopped earlier. What fights occurred were called to an end soon, though new ones appeared quickly after, as tempers flared in an all too tense atmosphere.

"I wish they'd hurry upstairs." Misty muttered.

"I'm sure they're doing their best." Soothing, Giovanni's voice answered the angry sound.

"Their best doesn't seem to be enough." The bitter reply came from Elayne. "We need to get out."

"Yeah, well, we can't." Melody's snapped back.

"No duh Sherlock." Scorn was all over Damian's voice as he intervened, defending Elayne.

"Look who's talking." Lance struck, retaliating.

"Guys, stop it." Giovanni's voice went unheard.

"What's your problem? Just because you happen to be the oh-so-great chief of state or whatever crap, you think you have the right to make fun of him?" Elayne let out the flurry of words quickly. "You can't even stay loyal to your family."

"Don't talk about what you don't know." Anger bubbling inside, Ash shot back. She knew nothing of why his father has left them, had no idea it had been as hard a sacrifice for him as for his family. She simply couldn't know.

"If we shouldn't talk about what we don't know, you'd have to be mute Ash." The stinging words came out of Damian.

"Take that back right now, you son of a bitch!" Misty yelled.

"And that comes from his own sister." Elayne's voice was filled with sarcasm.

"Yeah, well. At least she cared a little about me. Same can't be said about you, uh Damian? It's not like you were popular back at home." Misty glared at her brother, her eyes fierce. Damian stood frozen for a moment, blemishing, as if stabbed by the words.

"That," he muttered "was going entirely too far. You can be sure you'll pay for that..."

"I'm scared." Misty's retort was just as sarcasm filled as Elayne's had been.

"What are you going to do? Send your incompetent little Team Rocket after us, maybe?" 

"HEY!" Jessie and James yelled at once, their two voices sounding strangely like a single strange one. "What did we do?" They asked at once, then, perhaps deciding that the better part of valor was to stand out of the fight, withdrew, moving closer to Giovanni.

"Incompetent who managed to keep you and that little bastard you call a boyfriend out of the way for a whole month." Damian pointed out, a triumphant smiles on his lips.

"Coward. You let others do your dirty work for you. How many of the nine have you found on your own, again? Let's see...Elayne found herself, Ash found Sabrina, your father found Jessie and James...my, my, my...in all the time you spent looking for the nine you found the incredibly high number of TWO of them..." Lance's voice was withering, cold. "What an excellent seeker you are. I'm sure the people up there must be happy with you."

"Yeah, Giovanni did as much of it as you. How does it feel to let your daddy handle as much of the job as you do Damian?" Ash followed, not letting Damian the time to reply. He would pay for what he had said to Misty. "You didn't even collect gym badges or anything..."

"That way that means he didn't get most of them because the Gym leaders wanted to be nice to a pitiful-looking guy." Elayne retaliated.

"What are you saying I did?" Misty's voice came from between clenched teeth.

"You don't count. You probably were trying to be nice to him for...personal reasons." Insinuation was everywhere in Damian's voice.

"Are you calling me a man-whore?" Ash fired in retaliation, his hand flashing to the hilt of his sword, not to use it in battle but to release his pokemon.

"If you like the name, it's free for you to use." Damian smiled, a venomous smile. Ash prepared a reply, wanting his next line to put at least Damian if not both Damian and Elayne out of the fight.

Suddenly, everything seemed to freeze around them.

"Enough." He tried to turn toward the source of the voice but found that there was no way for him to do so. The blue energy surrounded him and all the others obviously indicated a psychic at work, but if it was one of their friends or Syraelle, that remained a mystery.

"I think you've fought enough, all of you." Ash relaxed a little, the voice was Danea's, doubtlessly. "Don't you have anything better to do than fight over nonsense like that? I'll remind you that we're under siege and that the enemy is outside, not inside. Geez, really. Lance, Ash, I expected better from you two at least. No offense meant to the others, but they are my family, so..." She talked quickly, going from one to the other as she did so.

Finally, she released them. "You're fighting is keeping us from working upstairs, by the way. We have a few ideas, but we'll need time and tranquility to try them out. You know, no yelling, no blood, no sounds of fighting or of fists crushing defenseless bones." Turning, she went back upstairs, turning toward them again once she reached the top of the stairway.

"If you start another fight, the lot of you will regret it." 


	4. Dark Spawn

Part 4 : Spawn of Darkness

Chapter 16 : Blessings

Moments ran by slowly, seconds flowing away, each of them seemingly lasting an eon. Yet there was only the present time, no past, no future. The present time, the hand on the blade, and the readiness to strike.

The leaf fell slowly, thrown in the wind. He could not see it, not blindfolded as he was, that much was true, but he could hear it, he could perceive it with his mind. He knew where it was, and waited. There was only one moment for the strike, too early and it would not be lethal, too late and your opponent would strike first. For a perfect strike, there was only one perfect moment.

There.

There was the faintest sound of steel as the blade left its scabbard, another barely audible sound as it struck true, and yet again the same sliding sound of steel as the sword returned home to it's scabbard. He did not need the blindfold removed to know that the leaf was on the ground, in two separate half. The strike had taken place between the blinking of an eye and the next, but to him, time had slowed down during the strike. Utter concentration led to the ability not to control the flow of time - but not to need doing so either. Fully concentrated, he could act at what would seem like a blinding speed to anyone else - and a normal speed, perhaps even slow, to himself.

With the mind focused on the present moment, there is no limit. One of the great teachings of the Kai masters, or so he was now learning. It was true, though he had barely been able to believe it back when he had started to learn.

"Good job." The voice of the young woman commented from behind him.

"Thank you." He replied, relaxing a little from his tense posture.

"Are you letting your guard down now?" She asked.

"I would never do that." Letting his hand rest on the hilts, he answered.

"Good." She whispered. Half a second later, the sound of a thrown object was coming at him, he immediately opened himself to it. There it was, coming at him, he could perceive it. A fruit, an apple perhaps. 

One, too, that would never reach him. As the projectile came closer and closer, he slowly moved his blade to intercept it, knowing that he had all the time in the world, as long as he kept focused.

With a solid thunk the apple met the blade, with another sound it fell to the ground. Or rather, its two remainaing parts did, again a perfect cut in the middle of the apple.

"I see. You did not let your guard down." She admitted finally, bowing, a bow he could only perceive through his other vision.

"I learned that lesson already." His replies was equally short, as he bowed in turn. It was an ancient custom, one that had never been popular in Aysaka, but to his companion and mentor, it was neither ancient nor unpopular. It was part of her way of life, had always been, along with many other things that made little sense, as far as he was concerned.

"True." She chuckled, no doubt remembering the way he had learned the lesson.

Removing the blindfold, he turned toward her, where she stood smiling. Her features were somewhat delicate, except for the fact that she had a face that was obviously used to the outside. Her almond-shaped eyes were dark, her jet-black hair were in a pony tail, one of the few concession she had made to "needless changes" as she called them, rather than in a topknot. A katana and wakizashi, swords of the samurai, hung from her belt in their sabbards, though they were not the ones she had once owned, those that now were at his belt. These two new blades had appeared out of nowhere when they awakened, along with many other things, which he had renounced to understand.

The crater around them seemed so empty, so lifeless, as if they were the only two in it. Perhaps they were, perhaps this was because of what had happened what seemed, what perhaps was a lifetime ago. 

_______________________________________

"I wish they'd..."

A warning glance from Giovanni was all that was needed to silence Elayne as she tried to let out some frustration. His dark eyes carried hints of mistreatment in them, perhaps of calling upon the trio of psychics that worked upstairs to carry on his concept of justice. Having been in Team Rocket for a long while, Elayne knew the concept was not something she wanted to face.

She sighed, returning to her seat, watching around. The outburst a few days earlier had come from so many factor that it was hard to keep track of them all. She was jealous, primarily. Jealous of Ash, for having found his father again, something she knew would never be her case. A car crash had taken care of them both three years before, and that was the end of it. Case shut, go to the graveyard, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars that you couldn't use anyway. The most stupid way to die perhaps, the one that left the most frustration, too. They had not died because of someone she could take revenge on, they had not died fighting for a worthy cause. They had died from a stupid accident, which left her alone, orphaned, and with an anger unspent.

And then there was jealousy of Misty, of course. How could she not be jealous? Misty had years and years to look ahead to with Ash, she did not even have a year left with Damian. Barely even six months, half a year. It was not Misty's fault, but it was impossible, as much as she tried, not to let the feeling that she deserved as much as Misty and yet would be given less cloud her judgement, now that she knew.

And then there was frustration. Frustration at being penned up, unable to escape and finish their quest, standing slowly inside as time went by - and as the hour they all feared, her especially, came closer and closer. Frustration at knowing that unless they could escape, Damian would die and his life would be wasted, as there would be no nine to face Tremayne, the prince of the night.

And she would be alone, forever. 

Frustration, too, at not being allowed to grieve the death she knew was coming. She had tried to, but Misty's realization had cut short the grieving, forcing her mind to concentrate on immediate threats though her soul yearned to think for Damian, and fix every single moment they spent together in the eternity of memory. And then, she had had t o keep her mind focused on battle, on war, as if part of her wanted to forget that Damian would be gone, while another wanted to think only of him. 

She moved closer to him, the first human she had gotten close too after the death of her parents, the first human she had somehow managed to trust not to leave her alone immediately after she attached herself to him. She had been right, he had not abandoned her right then. He would have waited over two years to do it.

Somehow, being right did not make her feel better at all. She put her arm on his shoulder, hugging his sleeping form tightly. He was resting from his watch, which had ended a few hours before. Having to maintain such a permanent watch of course cut in everyone's sleep and condemned them all to strange schedules - but what choices were there?

"I love you...even after...even when you're gone...I know you'll be with me..." she whispered, bringing him closer, if only a little.

The others had not heard, they were too busy, thinking, dreaming, planning. They would not hear what she would say next, to. Her voice, already low, became even less audible.

"If you want, I'll make sure something of you remain in this world. We'll make sure of it. Not now, but we will."

She caressed his cheek softly, letting one harm lie on his chest, feeling it slowly rise and fall, his heart beating inside. She still had him, for now at least. 

Hours, days passed.

________________________________

"We're done Ash." Whirling to face the voice, the young man found himself face to face with Danea.

"Really? How does it work?" He asked. There was no need to explain what it was, it had to be the method they had developed to keep them all hidden from the mind of Syraelle.

"Well, it simply make us invisible to the mind of other psychics...it won't last that long, but it should be enough to get out of range." She reported. "Only thing is that if she try hard enough, Syraelle might be able to find us and break through the shield - but she'd have to find us for that. If we can fake dying or some such, we should be able to get safely out, since she'd have no reason to really look for us..."

"I...see..." Ash's voice was quite clear on the fact that he was not seeing a thing in fact.

"Ok. As it is, Syraelle can find us without looking. She know where we are. If we shield ourselves, we'll vanish from her mind's eye. But she would be able to focus on finding the soul of one of us, trying very hard to do so. If she did that, she might be able to break through the shield and find us. Get it now?" Danea's voice seemed impatient. Of course, the concept had to be obvious to her, it was something she had done for years. To Ash, it was no easier to understand than the chaos theory, quantum physics, nuclear fusion, or astrophysical calculations, none of which he knew more than the name of.

"Why don't I take your word for it Danea? You're the expert on psychicish things, and I'll deal with pokemon training..." he shook his head.

"That's a good idea." A grin spreading on her face, she looked at him. "But you were the one who wanted to know."

"Don't remind me." He replied sourly.

"Is that anyway to speak with your aunt?" She arched an eyebrow. She had made peace with her past, apparently, putting behind what could not be changed, and Giovanni's return in her life had changed her beyond what Ash thought possible. There were still the faintest hints of pain in her eyes, but she was much more cheerful than he had ever known her.

"I thought that was my cousin's line." He smiled.

"She's my daughter, she got that somewhere you know."

"So I see, so I see." His smile changed slightly, becoming more like a grin.

"Anyway, now that we have your thing ready, could you please take care of explaining your plan to the others?"

"Yeah, I guess I should." Nodding quickly, Ash turned and walked in the living room, were most of the others were.

"All right. Time to get out of here." He told them, waking up those who were sleeping, getting the attention of those who were not.

"What's the plan?" Lance was first to ask.

"First off, we take all our pokemon with attacks that create light, however feeble." He explained, rapidly going over the details in his mind as he did so. "Then we have them fire all those attacks at once, to weaken the Avaraen. After that we shield ourselves and try to get out. If we are lucky and find a way to make it appear that we're dead, we'll do it.

"Seems like you're in luck for that." Giovanni stated, looking around the house again.

"What do you mean?" Ash asked quickly, whirling and racing to the window.

"Syraelle must have gotten bored with waiting. She's attacking."

_____________________________

"I thought we were to prevent them from making it to the fight?" Syraelle fought to keep control of her voice.

"The orders have changed." The man besides her smiled. "We are to make sure they reach the fight - under our control. I'm in charge of this now Syraelle. You try to find the prophecies so that we have all the information we need."

"All right sir!" She bowed quickly and walked off. Sharan was not exactly her favorite kind of boss, but she had no choice but to follow him. He was not as strong a psychic as she was, but he had the favor of her master, and the price of killing him was something she was not willing to pay.

______________________________

"All right. We let them in and pull back upstairs..." Ash ordered quickly as the others positioned themselves inside the corridor. "Then we pull out to that little balcony. There, we use our flying pokemon to get away after the flash." 

Drawing his sword, he braced himself for the assault.

"We don't have enough flying pokemon Ash..." Misty pointed out. "With those you got from Lance, and yours, we have seven, another one from James...and there are twelve of us." She pointed out.

"I have three - my dragonite, my charizard, and my dragonair." Lance replied quickly. "We need only one more."

"Wait a minute...did you just list dragonair in there?" Ash asked.

"Yeah...they can fly with people on their back, you know..." His voice was questioning, wondering.

"Remind me to have a chat with Aysen about that..." Ash muttered.

"And me with Syldra." Misty completed. "In that case we have enough flying pokemon. Let's do it then." She nodded. "I'll take Syldra, she has less of a temper than Aysen." She smiled at Ash.

The door broke open and the hulking form of a Rhydon appeared in the frame. They slowly pulled back up the stairways as smaller Avaraen-possessed pokemon charged in the room, their eyes an inky black, like a midnight sky.

Ash had his sword drawn, so had Misty, hacking at the attackers as they slowly pulled back, forcing some of them to stop and heal. It would not hold them back for long, but it would hold them back for a while. There was, strangely enough, no wave of despair, and he could only guess that they were only able to use that power while in their shapeless shadow form, that they lost it when they had an host.

They slowly reached the balcony, fighting a rearguard action against the attacking pokemon with each step they took. As they reached the door, they saw that Tanya, Sabrina and Danea were already at work covering the minds of everyone, or so it seemed. Their eyes flashed with bright light as they got ready to flee. Their pokemon were already out, ready to follow Ash's plan and illuminate the night sky.

As soon as he closed the balcony door, knowing it would not hold back the attackers for long, Ash turned toward the pokemon.

"Now." He said, and the fireworks started. Sunny day attacks combined with solar beams, morning sunlight streaking the sky as great pillars of flames appeared. Electric blasts shattered the immenisity above, white light lacerating the inky sky. 

Pikachu, Aysen, Syldra, Starmie, Golduck, Espeon, Flareon, Jolteon, Deathwing, Fenrir, all of Elayne's grass pokemon and many other fought, repeatedly calling down the wrath of the sky. The world shook, or seemed to at least as a brilliant light replaced the night. The Avaraen which had been asssaulting the door pulled back, writhing in pain.

"Now, time to fly out of here!" He yelled, jumping on Deahtwing's back as the others did the same with their own flying pokemon, or those they were borrowing. They took flight in an instant, racing away from the house as Sabrina, Tanya and Danea maintained the cover, and as the Avaraen still writhed in pain from the light blast.

Chapter 17 : Son and Daughter

"I think it's safe to land now. I don't feel her anymore, so we're probably out of range." 

After what seemed like eons of flying, Danea's words certainly provided a certain relief. The fact was, they were all sore from flying around, Misty seemed to have difficulties keeping her balance on the back of Syldra, sometimes almost slipping down and falling below, only maintaining her position through the efforts of the great dragon.

"Yeah. We need to rest." Yawning, Lance looked around. It had been a restless night for them all, sleep was waiting now.

"I guess so. And we need to plan our next move, too." Giovanni added, his voice making him sound like he had just awakened, and was completely refreshed and ready for anything. Ash wondered for a moment how he could avoid being tired to that point, but then had to concentrate on keeping his position again as Deathwing started changing direction.

Spiraling slowly downward, the birds and dragons came toward the road far below, landing there within moments. The talons and claws struck the ground as they all landed together. Stepping down from the pokemon that had carried them so far, they all looked around.

"I think we should get away from the road. Syraelle is sure to look at the obvious way first." Sabrina's voice was insisting. "We can keep the psychic defenses up and all, but for the rest, we'll have to hide in case she come after us again." Her suggestion made sense, Ash had to admit. It was pointless trying to escape as they had if they simply put themselves in a place to be found again.

"True." Lance's answer was simple.

They rapidly raced toward the wood, though not toward a clearing or any such. They installed themselves around the trees, trying to avoid the roots as much as they can, sleeping where they could. Of course, they slept in small clusters, many of them close to each other. Damian and Elayne, now weeping again as the stressful events of the last few days slowly withdrew from her mind, leaving her free to think of what Damian had told them just before the disaster started. Misty seemed to be rather down as well, and Ash kept her close to him, wanting her to feel safe from the world. Giovanni held Danea as well, and Jessie and James kept close once again.

They did not sleep too well that night, but to their tired bodied, any sleep not under the threat of assault by Syraelle's Avaraen minions was a good sleep. Waking up a few hours later, they all felt, if not completely refreshed, at least in good enough shape to actually do things and not just stay there.

They ate little, as they had not taken much upon leaving Danea's house, and then went to work on planning their next move, something of a certain import.

"I think we should all head for Indigo and rest there for a while...the League HQ should be safe enough..." Lance pointed out.

"We don't have the time for that. We still have three out of the nine to find, and a lot more besides." Damian refused the idea, shaking his head.

"Such as?" Ash asked curiously, wondering what else they had to find besides the nine. 

"The location of the final battle." He answered, then looked thoughtful for a moment. "The prophecies, a full version or as close as it gets, and then there's talk about the children of the legends that have yet to show up."

"Children of the legends?" Ash asked curiously, the name sounding strange, yet somehow familiar.

"I don't know what it is about. Just that each of them have something to do, and I don't even know who they are or what that is so..." He shrugged.

"I see." Nodding, Ash thought about the expression, trying to find where it could come from, the sound of it still ringing a bell in his mind.

"Anyway, we don't have the time to waste on a long stop at Indigo." Damian concluded, looking at Lance.

"I see." Lance nodded thoughtfully. "What are you going to try for next? And who's going to go?" 

"The same group that's been running around. Melody, me, Elayne, Ash, Sabrina, Misty, Jessie and James." Damian answered quickly.

"And me." Ash did not even need to hear the voice or any such to know who had pronounced them, simply seeing them written would have been enough. 

He turned to face his cousin, who stood facing Damian, her face defiant, challenging him to say no. Her eyes were hard, her hands in the pockets of her long black coat.

"Please Tanya, it's not the time to play." Damian answered, trying though without much success to sound very serious, at least as far as Ash could tell.

"Who said I was playing? I'm going along, and that's the end of it." she replied, an edge in her voice.

"No you aren't." Damian's voice was just as hard.

"Wait a minute Damian...I think I remember something in the prophecies we found in Saffron...about how one of the nine would be a child of violence, of the child blood..." he remembered the events.

"Yeah, so?" Damian obviously was not interested in what Ash had to say, too busy trying to think up ways to prevent Tanya from tagging along.

"Well, the child is me. She's of my blood. And saying she's a child of violence certainly makes sense." He shrugged helplessly. "Your choice, but I think we need her along." He finished.

"We'll see about that." Reaching for his backpack, Damian picked a strange stone out of it, and moved closer to Tanya. 

"What's that?" Ash asked suddenly.

"Starspire gem. If she's one of the nine, she'll be tied to an element or another, and that stone will give off some kind of glow when she touches it." His explanation was quick and to the point.

"And what if I don't want to touch it?" Tanya challenged.

"Then you aren't coming, and that's that." Damian shot back.

"All right, all right. I'll try." Tanya threw her arms up.

She came closer to the gem and reached out to touch it with the tip of her finger. Nothing happened that Ash could see, Damian's frown gave way to a triumphant smile. The stone seemed to stay idle, but as Damian moved to reclaim it, tiny specks of dark blue energy materialized deep inside, growing quickly into a dark blue glow, similar to the one Misty's eyes gave when she used her dark powers.

"So? I take it that was conclusive?" It was Tanya's turn to smile.

"Took a while." Damian protested. "Too long."

"Yeah, right. You're groping for an idea not to take me along." Pushing a strand of white hair off her face, Tanya smirked.

"Stop it Damian. She's coming along." Misty finally intervened.

"I'm with Misty." Sabrina nodded quickly.

"So am I." Ash agreed.

"Please don't do this to me..." Damian muttered.

"Sorry Damian, but for once I'll have to disagree with you...I'm really sorry..." Elayne joined them, and Ash smiled as Damian threw his arms up.

"All right. All right, she's coming along. But don't come running for me if you find out we were wrong to take her along."

"No chances of that." Tanya laughed.

They talked for a long while still, but could not agree on where to go, had no idea what to do now. Without the full prophecies, there was no way to tell what was left to be done, and thus they were stuck trying to think up a plan.

"The thing is, where can those prophecies be?" Damian finally asked the real question. Their obvious next step was to find them, the less obvious part was where to find them. The clues they had found so far about the prophecies as a whole held nothing concerning the one most pressing problem.

"Where could they be though?" Misty asked as they continued talking.

"Anywhere. Heck, it could be buried right under here for all I know." Sitting down on a tree stump, Damian looked around, and under the stump. "Hey, you never know!" He smiled sheepishly, then his face grew serious again.

A soft luminosity, a strange radiance, filled the forest around them, without warning, without sound. It was soothing, heartening. It was also strangely awing, messenger of feeling of wonder such as Ash had never felt before.

The light stopped brightening, and two figures, two women-like beings, appeared, seemingly from behind a tree, though Ash confusedly felt that they came from much further away. One looked for all the world like a woman in a gray dress, but her dress shimmered, streaks of twilight colors coming in it, and her hair color was impossible to define, seeming to shift from gold to red to purple without warning, like the twilight sky.

The other looked less human, definitely, though with definitely female features. Golden scales covered her body except for the head, and two great wings were folded behind her back. She wore a loosely fitting white tunic that certainly left no doubt as to her gender, and had a sword in a scabbard at her belt.

"My ladies." The strangely awed voice was Damian's, Ash realized, and, looking away from the two women, he had the surprise to find him kneeling.

"Damian." The gray-dressed woman answered, as Danea and Giovanni bowed in turn. "Giovanni, Danea." She smiled.

"I think you have a question you want answered Damian?" 

"I do." The young man nodded, as Ash watched, trying to guess who the visitors were. He had a few ideas, but they seemed too farfetched to be the truth. After all, asides from very rare events such as the one that would come in a few months, gods and mortals were supposed to live apart, weren't they?

"The prophecies is in the city that was lost to the world, forgotten and forsaken. The fallen legend keep it, tainted by the darkest darkness, but that does not mean you will not get it." The woman answered, and Ash looked at her again. Hair like twilight, a dress that gave much the same impression, she might very well be the lady of twilight that was in every prophecies and then some, as doubtful as it sounded.

"Thank you Enaira." Damian lowered his head and Ash knelt quickly as he realized his suspicions had in fact been right. Now, of course, there was the matter of being disrespectful to a goddess, which hopefully would not triger retaliation.

The golden-scaled figure laughed, a clear sound much like the song of a bird in the morning, or water cascading cheerfully in a forest river.

"Don't be afraid Ash. We are not the sticklers on formality and all that that most religions make their gods look like. As long as you do what we ask you to, I don't care whether your way of greeting me is kneeling or making faces." She smiled, her eyes shining.

"Isn't that a way of saying "I'm your boss, and I don't give a damn about you." sister?" The woman he now knew was Enaira smiled.

"Well, I suppose so..." The golden-scaled goddess admitted. Smiling, she turned toward them. "Though admittedly it's not very true. Otherwise I wouldn't be here."

They all gathered around her as she motioned for them to come closer, and sat down around her. "I came to speak to each of you. Or rather we both did. You've come a long way, and you still have a long way to go, all of us - longer than any of you suspect." She shook her head. 

"You're giving away secrets." Enaira pointed out, but the only answer was a glare from her sister.

"I think you should handle Damian, he's your contribution to the feud after all." The scale-covered woman, without a doubt the lady of light, Leilia, finally said.

"Yeah, well. I'll do that. Take care of the others."

Turning toward them, Leilia started to speak, addressing each of them in turn.

"Ash, I know you are probably the most courageous of them all. Keep that fire in your heart. You will need it." She looked at him straight in the eyes. "There is a choice looming ahead for you. One way take you to a lot of pain and suffering, and maybe ultimately happiness. The other path will reward you, but leave you empty...I can't tell you more, just remember that whenver you feel an important choice is coming." She shook her head. "Be careful. You're perhaps the most at risk here. You're an obvious target, and your courage can be a weakness as much as a strength."

Ash nodded briefly, a nod that Leilia perhaps missed as she turned to face Elayne.

"Elayne, you know what's coming for you, to a certain extent. You made your choice of a path...it will affect the future, I think, because of certain choices my sister made. Your path won't be easy, you will lose a lot, and the final destiny is one that I can't even see...but one day or another you will be with Damian again." She shook her head once more as Elayne carefully wiped a tear from her eyes.

"Misty, you too have a dark path ahead. Remember though not to put too much faith in what you did not witness yourself - rumors have away of transforming the truth in dark lies, or of creating lies out of empty words." Her eyes held Misty's in their grip. "The world if filled with veils of shadow, drawn over all eyes, and sometime even fate can be avoided."

Misty nodded quickly, waiting only for the eyes to release her before turning to look at Ash as Leilia turned to look at Sabrina.

"You don't have as dark a path to walk as the others, Sabrina, though I'm afraid you will still suffer at some point. The truth of life is out there, search for it. Don't let the past bring you down, forget the unpleasant memories. They are part of you for now, but they don't have to be - fight them, I know you can. Ask yourself if the price of keeping that past away from harming you but in you still is worth returning to what you once where."

She turned again, this time making eye contact with Jessie and James, somehow both at once, Ash was sure of it from looking at them.

"Both of you have the strangest path ahead. It isn't dark, but it will change you beyond changing - if you succeed.It's a path no one walked before, and that hopefully no one will have to walk again. That's all I can say - I don't know all the details, there is such a thing as luck to balance fate." She slowly moved her head again, now bringing herself to face Tanya, who was waiting, awe painted all over her features.

"And you Tanya have the least dark path of all. There is no tragedy, no terrible loss that I can see - but you will still have a great importance in the future. Pay close attention to your dreams in the coming days, they will often hold secrets that you must be aware of. Secrets you can't even begin to imagine." She smiled, and finally she rose again, no longer facing them in turn.

"I have one last thing to tell all of you, something you absolutely must remember in the next few months, next few years even. Don't let death brings you to despair. Death isn't the end of the world. Death, in fact, is never the end. There's always something else, something beyond. Remember that Ash, you too Misty. Remember that Elayne and all of you. Death isn't the end - though you should still do your best to avoid it, of course." She concluded her talk. Nearby, Damian and Enaira were coming back, and Damian's face was puzzled.

"Now, farewell, all of you. We are with you." Enaira said, and a second after Leilia repeated the strange blessing, as the light faded away and the two of them vanished, stepping behind a tree.

Chapter 18 : Path to Ruins

"What now?" Tanya asked as they made themselves ready to depart.

"We find the city forsaken and forgotten, whatever it means, go there, grab the prophecies, find out what we have to do next, do it, and so on." Damian replied disctractedly.

"Congratulation, genius. I mean, no one here figured that already..." Tanya mocked him.

Rolling his eyes, Ash moved between the two, motioning for Damian to shut up as he was about to reply.

"Stop it. Both of you."

"But I did not..." Damian started, Ash cutting him off before he could finish.

"I don't care. Don't fight with her. Same goes for you Tanya."

"Yeah, right." Muttering, Tanya glared at her cousin. Ash let out an inward sigh. Keeping the whole group from fighting would prove a daunting task, but it was necessary. If they started fighting, everything they were doing would be compromised.

"Obviously, we have to find that city. Any suggestions?" Misty moved in, smoothly drawing the discussion away from the narrowly avoided fight to much more important matters.

"Pokemopolis." With a shrug, Ash answered. "I heard they found more of it than just the old temple, so maybe that's it." 

"I don't know if it really fits the forgotten part, it's a center of archeological researches right now." Sabrina objected, bringing up a very good objection, though one Ash felt was a bit too much of a literal interpretation of the words.

"Yeah, but it can't be that forgotten of a city, else there wouldn't be a way for us to find it." That much was certainly at least how Ash saw the situation. If the city was truly forgotten, then they would never find it.

"You have a good point." Sabrina nodded. "We might as well try it then."

"I guess so." Damian agreed, his eyes apparently already thinking of something else. "There's another problem though. How are we going to move around?"

"We'll fly, of course." A quick reply, and one that he could see no problem with, at least not at first sight.

"And of course Syraelle is not going to be the least bit curious if she happens to see a bunch of pokemon flying together in the sky carrying people." There was the faintest hint of sarcasm in Damian's voice.

"You got a point there." Ash conceded. "We walk, then?"

"Do you have any other idea?" Elayne asked him.

"No, I guess not. Though maybe we could fly at night and sleep at day? We wouldn't be able to fly as much as we could if we were flying at day, but there is an advantage to stopping at day - Avaraen are going to be weaker, so we might as well try to keep on the move when they'd be ready to attack us..."

"True." Damian nodded thoughtfully. "But resting at day won't be easy." He objected.

"Easier than resting with the constant threat of a full scale Avaraen attack, and if we move at night flying we'll go faster than walking at day."

"Yeah, I guess so. We might as well try it." Nodding, Damian turned away. 

They waited a long while before leaving that day, knowing they wouldn't be able to head directly south-east, as it would take them too close to Syraelle, but rather would have to circle, either to the west or to the east, before heading south again. As the sun went down, they gathered, well-rested, and sent out their flying pokemon, nine of them. Ash climbed on Deathwing's back, Misty hopping on Syldra, reminding Ash again to have a talk with Aysen, Tanya on a Pidgeot that Lance had given then, Sabrina and Melody on two more such, and Jessie and Damian on two fearow. James climbed on his strange icy pidgeot, and Elayne on Celes.

Flying westward toward Johto, they all stood on the ready, watching Tanya and Sabrina for any sign that Syraelle was present somewhere in the vicinity. They gave none as the nine specks of shadow headed over the mountains, invisible against the black sky of deep night.

The sun seemed to rise all too soon, and it was time to stop, but at least the high peaks were already on the other side, beyond them. Considering that Syraelle and her allies seemed not to have any flying pokemon, this gave them a good advantage, putting a natural barrier between the two groups.

The day seemed to go by slowly, as they first rested, then walked for a few hours before resting again a little bit. They took to the skies as the sun went down, farther from the mountains than they had been, to the south and west. It would be a long road, taking them all the way south down to New Bark, then up in the mountains, then over them to return to near Pallet and to the ruins of Pokemopolis.

The moon was their only source of light as they flew, all too often clouds covered the sky and they were unable to see the ground or take their bearing on the stars. More than once as the grayish light of sun rose, the found that they had flown east when they had meant to go south, or north instead of west. The darkness was not a good traveling companion, and they lost many sleeping hours each day walking back more or less on track.

In two days, they were out of the mountainous country north of New Bark and flying over the great forested lowlands between the Violet arm of the Silver range, the Silver range itself. They flew still, few landmarks guiding them, the starts not a trustworthy companion. Their pokemon could sometime provide some guidance, but such luck was rare. More often than not, they would get lost as surely as their human masters.

The world seemed to have turned against them as they fought their way down south, narrowly avoiding flying back in the waiting grasp of Syraelle only because one would manage to see the darker bulk of the mountains against the already too dark background of the horizon. But even the mountains were hidden far too often, even them would not guide them most of the time, not as long as they were far enough from them to be safely away from Syraelle.

Weather did not help either, far from it. The wind, roaring as it struck their face, seemed to try to form a wall that would force them back out of empty air. Some night, thunder tore at the sky, and they would not even be able to take flight. 

Constants delay and never-ending menaces did nothing to help with the mood of the travelers. Tanya complained about everything, threatened everyone. Damian and her fought nearly all the time, or they might as well have as far as Ash cared. Tired and sore as he was, the difference between nearly all the time and a lot, or however often they truly fought was trivial. Sabrina seemed to isolate herself again, keeping a distance between them and her, and whenever he tried to approach her to know what was wrong, he would feel eyes on him, and would know Misty was watching, perhaps slightly worried about the friendship between him and Sabrina. She had no real cause to worry, but her heart would not know or admit to it.

Jessie and James commented more than once than they'd rather be digging pits to catch pikachu, even if their plan were doomed to failure before they were even thought up than to have to travel when all of nature seemed to work to block their way. Raiken, apparently, took offense at the comment, and offered them a reminder of "the old times" as they called it. The subsequent frying had not helped the mood of the two ex-gangsters, though they at least stopped complaining about how they were better off trying to catch pikachu.

Melody was withdrawn, perhaps still wounded inside by what had happened during their capture by Syraelle and her men. She had seemed to feel better about the whole disaster, but apparently, the days of hard traveling were bringing out what she had managed to conceal.

When they reached the sea, Ash sighed with relief, thinking they had reached the bay of Bark or perhaps the ocean south-west of New Bark. They landed on the coast and waited for the sun to rise, only to have a nasty surprise as it revealed a coast on the other side, with tall mountains. The Alph mountains, no doubt about it. Which meant than rather than being between New Bark and Pokemopolis as they had hoped or Cherrygrove and New Bark as they had expected, they were between Cherrygrove and Violet, much too far away from their intended destination.

"What now?" Damian asked, kicking some sand, earning himself a glare from Tanya.

"What now? I guess we try to get back to New Bark. I mean, it's not like we have anything better to do..." Elayne answered distractedly.

"What astounding insight." Tanya's voice was bland.

"Shut up." Damian's voice cracked like a whip.

"Stop it, both of you. Why do I have to baby-sit you all?" Ash held up both hand, moving between Tanya and Damian.

"But..." Elayne tried to protest.

"No but. You stop it now, all of you. We have something more important to do than fighting, I think. Tanya, stop making those smart-ass remarks. Damian, stop over-reacting. BEFORE I encase you in a cube of ice for a few hours. Or both of you." He punctuated his last remark by letting out a beam of freezing air that struck a tree, encasing it in solid ice. The powers of Tairan were still his to command, and he would not hesitate to use them to force the others to stop fighting.

"Good job Ash." Sabrina commented. "Now, we're going to fly south, following the coast, to Cherrygrove, then we'll do the same until we reach New Bark. Even with the night as dark as it gets, we can't possibly miss the coast line - we all saw that last night." She explained emotionlessly.

"Yeah, I guess you're right...but it's going to be a lot longer that way..." Damian pointed out.

"Are you sure? If we start getting lost every day, it's not exactly going to take us less time to reach New Bark." Misty countered, and Ash could do nothing but agrees silently.

New Bark, they finally reached twelve days after leaving the mountains, a long travel that had taken them entirely too much time. They were all worn and tired as they reached the town, eager to get a night sleep in an actual bed, would it only be one of the barely comfortable bunk of the pokemon center. Anything was better than dirty, wet mud under the rain.

They stayed in New Bark for two days, though Damian was eager to leave again. The rest was needed, there was no question about it, but still it cost them precious hours in their quest. On the other hand, not resting could prove much more disastrous over all, as it would make them easy prey for whatever other challenges awaited them. Ash sighed as he woke up on the second day in the city. It was not easy a choice to make, whether to stay or go, and he was only glad he did not lead the group and only had to keep the peace between Damian and Tanya.

Fortunately, his little ultimatum seemed to actually have some effects, rather than simply ending one fight. Whenever Damian said something obvious, Tanya would glare at Ash rather than go for one of her smart comment, and if she actually made one, Damian would take a look at Ash then elect not to answer. Some would have referred to the phenomenon as wisdom. To Ash, it was mostly fear.

"Well, we're nearly here." Elayne pointed out, looking at the mountain on the other side of the bay of Bark. "If we leave today and walk we could be at the crossroad two days from now, and over the mountains a few hours later. Syraelle certainly isn't around Danea's house anymore..." she pointed out.

That much was obvious, after all the time they had spent, she would no longer be there. But of course, that left the question of where she now was, preparing perhaps another trap for them, another way to get them to fall in her waiting grasp and punish them for opposing her plans, whatever they were.

They did so, adapting themselves again to traveling by day and sleeping by night, though it was not an hard adaptation, far from it. The darkness was a welcome companion in their sleep again, sheltering them from the blazing light that had been the constant remainder of the price of not being caught by Syraelle and her henchmen and minion. The sun, in turn, was a welcome guide in the day as they traveled , shattering the darkness that had held them away from finding their way.

They passed by the cave in which they had met Butch and Cassidy, what seemed eons ago, what was only in fact less than a year. So much had happened since then that Ash could not recall properly the details of the event, only vague recollections of the chaotic battle in which he had first used the true powers Tairan had given him. The war with the Lotus, the hunt through the forest of Viridian, the long trek in a sunless world, the siege of Danea's house those were the events on his mind now. Not a short battle that had taken place a while ago already, even if it they had stood to lose much in that battle.

A strange pokemon seemed to wait there, one like none other Ash had seen before. It had a gray coat of fur, with a strange sun-like shape on the chest. It's head was that of a canine, just like a houndoom or an arcanine, but slightly different. A mane of fire flowed behind the head, and where a houndoom's outer bones would have been, new flames took birth, covering the back of the beast with fire, the same fire that burned at her tail. The creature was definitely female, and her golden eyes seemed to glow with an intense inner fire, a light like that of two blazing suns.

"What's that..." Ash wondered out loud, rapidly fishing in his pants pocket for the pokedex he kept there. Aiming it at the creature gave no result other than the "no known pokemon" the device told him in the tiresome old mechanical voice.

"I don't...I really don't know..." Damian voice sounded puzzled as he stared at the beast, aqua eyes meeting golden ones. Damian looked astonished, disbelieving that there would be something he didn't know about, the creature sat on her haunches, face unreadable.

"A Wolspire..." Ash whirled to face the source of the voice, it was Elayne. "I met a few back when I was learning to use the bow...my teacher told me about them...supposedly they're psychic, but they were the one who started working on turning psychic powers to dark powers." She explained.

"I heard of those..." Sabrina whispered. "I heard of them, but I never thought it was more than a legend...I never thought I'd run in one one day...they're said to be the wisest pokemon outside the legendaries, and even wiser than some of those."

"I know...I heard those legends too..." Damian nodded, his face a study in wonder and amazement. "A wolspire...it's something I never thought I'd run into..."

"[i]I have been waiting for you all.[/i]" the glowing eyes betrayed that the voice that rang through their mind came from the creature. It was a soft, delicate voice, peaceful and soothing, a voice that seemed to wash away all worries. 

"Why?" Damian's voice was slightly suspicious.

"[i]Have you not guessed already, seeker? Have you forgotten the oracles, that each have to guide their master or mistress? The oracle of waves that guide your sister, the oracle of frost, the oracle of ashes, the oracle of the sun that guide you, Sabrina and the oracle of heaven that guide Ash...have you forgotten them?[/i]"

"No..." A cautious reply, hesitantly given.

"[i]And have you forgotten that for the mistress of dreams the oracle of moon must come? That the mistress of dreams have yet to find her guide?[/i]"

"You are?" Understanding seemed to come at last, as it came to Ash, as it came, seemingly, to all others.

"[i]I am, just like I am Shiara of the Yakuru pack.[/i]" She introduced herself. "For years the Yakuru pack has had the honor of having the new oracle of the sun born among their numbers. I am the latest one." Smiling, or at least letting on her face what could pass as the equivalent of a smile, she moved away, revealing a bundle behind her. Ash needed no wisdom, no great knowledge to know what it kept hidden, to realize that there were a weapon and a cloak there.

Tanya apparently needed no information either, she knew. She went and picked up the dark blue cloak, a color like the night sky, revealing the two strange swords under it. Two blades, with strange handles. Damian tried to get a look at them, a glare from Tanya was enough to make him change his mind about it. She examined the blade on her own for a while, before finally putting the handle against each other and press hard -somehow combining the two swords in one strange weapon. Some more work, though little, and the weapon was once again two blade. It seemed easy enough to assemble and trustworthy enough - it would not be shattered by accident during battle, though even if it was, two swords were still more than enough weaponry.

There was more talking, though not too much of it, and soon they were on their way again, to reach Pokemopolis finally after three days, and well over a week later than they had planned, seventeen days where they had planned for seven days at most.

Chapter 19 : Time of Ruin

The forest near Pokemopolis sounded, seemed empty, deprived of animal life. Walking through it, Misty could do nothing but wonder why it was so dark, so strange. It seemed as if all life had gone out of the world around them. She did not comment on it, there seemed to be an oppressive sense of waiting in the world around them, and she was somehow half-afraid to lure to them the wrath of some terrible force by breaking the silence it had brought about.

Of course those where child's fear, at least in a critical eye they seemed so. To her mind, they were senseless fears, and she should mention to the others her worries. But to her soul, to her hearth, they were true fears. The sense of waiting was not an illusion born of believing too much, not to her heart. It was the truth, what was really happening all around.

No sound, except the dry snap of a fallen twig from time to time, the hushed breaths of nine humans and a few pokemon. Even their footsteps seemed silent, as if they all shared the same fear.

Dark shadows seemed to wait everywhere, darkness here, darkness there, trees keeping the sun from reaching their faces, from lighting their path. All of them were edgy, to an extent, ready and waiting for anything, for everything. Sabrina's eyes blazed as she apparently sensed around in the forest, trying to find the threat, if there was one, before it found them. Her grip on her staff was no longer that of someone holding a simple walking stick, but the grip of someone ready to fight with the staff. 

Ash, similarly, was ready. His sword was not yet drawn, not now, but his hand rested on the handle and his eyes flashed about, eyeing warily the world around them for the smallest sign of danger, anything which would require him to draw the blade in his scabbard.

Tanya had no such patience, unlike her cousin. Her eyes blazed as she searched the forest with her powers like Sabrina, as her hand gripped the twin handle of her weapon, fully equipped. There would be little time to do so if the attack came as a surprise, she was right to want to have her weapon ready, even though it too only a few second to ready it normally. 

Elayne's bow was no longer on her shoulder but in her hand, and her other hand was resting in her quiver, ready to take an arrow, draw and release with one swiftly devastating motion. Her eyes darted from left to right in a constant watch, knowing the danger could come from any side, and knowing there would only be one occasion to shot, after which a threat, if any, would be too close.

Damian had no weapon, neither did Melody, but far from staying idle, they had moved to the center of the group, so that at least it would be easier to protect them. Their eyes scanned the leaves, the trunks, trying to perceive any threat that would hide in the shadow. There were, Misty was sure. There was no way she could trust a forest that silent. Where were the birds, the pokemon?

Jessie and James were perhaps the most surprising of them all as they darted ahead of the group, moving silently in hope of springing any traps before the rest of the group could fall in them. Their weapons were ready for battle, spear ready to sink in flesh and long sword drawn. Misty was forced to admit that she had perhaps misjudged them, and that they seemed to have a hidden reserve of courage they had never shown to them all.

No sounds yet came. No movements save theirs. A leaf fell from a tree, and thinking that an enemy was about to attack them, Misty's hand flashed to her sword. Her hand was on the hilt when she realized her mistake. She breathed deeply, realizing that she had narrowly avoided a disastrous mistake. She moved her hand away from the hilt slowly, and the stress-filled, long trek continued. Wary eyes darting, shaking hands over their weapon, they moved slowly, trying to avoid sound.

A blur of shapeless shadow out of nowhere, a striking darkness coming at them out of nowhere without a body. An Avaraen, no doubt about it. Misty barely had the time to see it; already it was on the ground, vanishing as everyone watched with stunned expression. Ash's blade had sliced the creature in two, but rather than simply reforming around the blade, it had disappeared.

Turning a questioning face toward Damian, Ash seemed to be equally puzzled by the event as anyone else. They all believed Avaraen could not be harmed, not by any conventional weapon, at least not by a weapon not made to harm them. They all had been told that, and if any one of them knew another answer, it had to be Damian.

"All right. I'm an idiot." His tone was still hushed, there might be others Avaraen in the forest. "I never realized that those weapon of yours had to be made somehow with the capacity to hurt Avaraen. I should have known, considering their history, but I missed it. Can I see that sword of yours Ash?" He extended his hand without waiting for an answer. Ash silently handed him the sword.

The blade shone as a small ray of light bursting through the cover of leaves and illuminating it. It was still perfectly clean, the metal far from dull, mirroring the world around it, the sharp edge looking ready to cut even the strongest iron. A slight, almost invisible blue glow had seemed to surround it in the brief instant that it had been in Ash's hands, now it glowed no more.

"Not much of it, but enough..." Damian looked at the blade. "Starspire gem. They must have used some starspire powder in the ore they took to make that sword. Make sense, at least." He shook his head. "I should have seen it."

"Don't worry about it." Ash replied quickly, and Misty gave him a grateful look. She did not want Damian to start on being depressed, not now, no matter how much they had fought lately.

"Yeah...Anyway, starspire burn the Avaraen to an extent. That one was weak, to it destroyed him. Stronger ones would just be hurt but maybe enough to get them to run away. I suppose all your weapons are pretty much the same." He finished, motioning for them to let him examine them, confirming all of his suspicions. Elayne's arrows were not made of the same starspire-improved ore, but it was apparently in every other weapon, including the blade of Elayne's dagger.

As the sun went beyond the mountains, something they could barely perceive with the forest and clouds, screams suddenly erupted throughout the woodlands, shattering the silence with utter panic and total fear. They did not come from their own throats, fortunately. There were no reasons for them yet to panic, none that they could see at least.

Still, it was no longer a matter of watching the forest around them warily. They all knew there was trouble in the forest now, in the general direction of Pokemopolis, perhaps at the ruins themselves. Their hands, which before had been readying their weapon in case they would be needed for battle, now held them ready to fight. Ash drew his Katana; Misty followed half a second later, both blades resting in their owner's hands.

James lowered his spear so that it pointed forward as it raced ahead, just as Sabrina held her staff in a defensive position, and Tanya in a position between those taken by the other two, as her weapon was half a sword, half a spear and half a staff.

Elayne now had an arrow ready to fire, only needing to draw and release, something they all knew she could do in the blinking of an eye, and Jessie held her sword ready for the strike. They raced forward; ready to engage anyone that would try to stop their way. Their footstep now raged through the forest, a sound that definitely ended what little scraps of silence where left with the screams.

Soon, a clearing appeared, more than that, a vast open area, with the mountains bordering it in a cliff that stood at the opposite end. Forest surrounded it on three sides, with ancient ruins visible everywhere now, including one temple carved out in the cliff. A few barracks were the only sign of modern human being around; they were also the home of the Pokemopolis research team.

And everywhere, swarming in the ruins and around the barracks, shadows without name, without form, and creatures that had once lived and were now covered in the same shadow, their soul lost and replaced by a mockery of the feelings and thought that made existence.

Even worst, close to the entrance of a cave that lead in the mountain, a figure that matched descriptions he had heard far too often from Sabrina and Damian, and Melody once or twice, though they had been far sketchier.

"Syraelle." Damian snarled, as the figure turned to look at them. And smirked.

"Misty, Sabrina, Tanya, go after her!" Ash yelled, racing toward one of the barrack. "Elayne, you take Damian and Melody to some safe spot! Jessie, James, with me, we'll try to help those scientists!"

"Right!" With a nod, Misty charged forward, knowing there was little time to get to the cave before the swarming Avaraen blocked their way. "Hurry! And Ash, be careful!" She yelled, suddenly realizing how much they all stood to lose in the battle.

"I'll be. Take care you too!" He yelled, racing the other way with the two rockets in tow, weapons on the ready. Elayne led their two unarmed companion back in the forest.

__________________________

Racing on the even ground of the clearing, Ash felt rising apprehension as the Avaraen besieging the barracks came closer and closer. Before he even had the time to think about turning back however, they were there, and there was no more time to think. His sword hacked an Avaraen in two, causing the being to fall to the ground, writhing it pain. It was apparently too powerful to kill right out and the shadow would eventually reform, but at least it was out for a while. Oddly enough, there was no despair, no panic, even with all the Avaraen around.

Jessie's sword cleaved in the ranks of the Avaraen with wide swing that brought down many, while James lashed out against them all with his spear. Those Avaraen that had shapes went toward them, claws and talons ready, but the three weapons silenced them, forcing them back. 

Still, the numbers were against them. An Avaraen falling would immediately be replaced by another, and a second swing of the blade would be needed to stand a chance at victory in the deadly battle they were waging.

A shadowed human hand came out, attached to the hand of a scientist that had apparently fallen to an Avaraen, his head rolled down and his body crumpled, the shapeless shadow departing from it as pain seared it.

A tendril of shadow reached toward Ash, only to be severed with a quick strike of James's spear, taking it out. The battle raged on, blades falling on the Avaraen, hoping to reduce their numbers before they would be overwhelmed, but it appeared to be too little to have any effect on the final results.

An idea came, not from long thinking, not the kind of idea thought out and compared to the numerous possibilities, but one that came in the heat of action when there was no time to consider the possible reason why it would fail. Summoning the powers of Tairen as he had done before, he sent out chilly beams of cold air all across the area, freezing whatever they touched, forming blocks of ice around the shadow, though only for a short time as the shadows would somehow find a way to melt the ice before a minute was even out.

But still, enough to gain them some time, perhaps to help them make their way to the barracks. And with some help, perhaps it would be enough to turn the tide.

"James, call out your bird!" He yelled, at the same time releasing the hulking form of Rafael from its pokeball. The huge Blastoise recoiled upon seeing the swarm of Avaraen, then seemed to understand the plan, letting loose an ice storm in the back rows of the enemy forces. There was, Ash was sure, something else that could help, but he could not grasp the idea that seemed to evade him.

Even without the second idea that he still grasped for, the first one helped tremendously, the seconds gained by freezing each Avaraen making it nearly impossible for them to avoid the swords and spears that came to claim their un-life, reducing the number that would attack them.

A searing touch on his shoulder caused him to steps away, realizing an Avaraen had slipped behind his defenses. A quick slash brought the first down, five more appeared behind. All around them, a rolling wave of Avaraen. They were close to the door, but the thick mass would not allow them to reach it, not without some serious luck.

More and more Avaraen seemed to come, some still shapeless shadow, some having possessed spirits and taken living shape. They reached toward the three of them as they gathered in a circle, hoping to be at least able to keep the creatures from attacking them from behind.

____________________________

The Avaraen raced to close their path, and Misty could only hope they would make it through in time, or at least that they would make it to the wall of shadow before it was too thick. As it was a few Avaraen beat them to the great stone doors of what seemed a building inside the cliff, but not enough to really pose a threat, a few swing of staff, sword and sabre bringing them down at least for the time they would need to heal, and clearing the passage. 

The heavy stone doors were open, swinging them closed would have been, beyond nearly impossible, useless as the Avaraen seemed to have no interest in hunting them down, rather turning their attention toward the barracks, and Ash. A chill ran down her spine at the realization, but there was nothing she could do about it for now, and racing in after the Avaraen to try to get to Ash and help him would have been risky, far too dangerous in fact.

They stepped inside the cave, and raced on the surprisingly even ground, one that had obviously at some point been a floor of some kind, perhaps covered with stone slabs, or even a marble floor, there was no way to guess, only faint outlines in the stone that could lead to believe that. Here and there, fissures marked what perhaps was the result of the thunderous footsteps that the two giant pokemon had taken in their terrible duel in the region.

No one seemed to wait, no trap, nothing. As they raced forward, Misty wondered if they would manage to catch Syraelle, who seemed to have a good few minutes of advantage.

"We're getting closer." Sabrina's voice was hushed, and Misty tightened her grip on her sword.

"Right." Tanya nodded.

"There's something else ahead." The realization came out of a sudden, a weird feeling she had encountered before...

"What is it?" Not even turning, Sabrina kept racing forward as the question left her lips.

"Avaraen, I think."

"We'll deal with it." Tanya said confidently. 

They raced more, up what might have once been a stairway, and reached a door that led out in the open, under the darkened sky.

To face Syraelle, waiting for them, her eyes flashing with triumph, a cloaked man holding a dark sword much like the ones carried by Ash and Misty. And to a massive shapeless shadow, one seemingly ten times the size of any other they had encountered.

"Hello, girls." Syraelle's voice was mocking. "I see you decided to join us for our little party." A smirk appeared on her face.

The tendrils of shadow of the creature flew out to strike them, and Misty barely dodged out of the way in time, her sword claiming the tentacle, but barely harming the creature itself. A new tentacle soon appeared.

"Even your starspire weapons won't do you much good. There's only one Avaraen stronger than those like that one. And he could swallow up a whole city, by himself. That one will be more than enough to deal with three pesky adventurers." Their nemesis laughed.

More tendrils of shadow flew at them, and again they could barely dodge in them, claiming more tentacles of the beast and for each one that fell, another grew. It was a hopeless fight.

"Oh, by the way, I'm taking this nice book with me, a gift from him. I'm sure it will make interesting reading." She waved an old leather-bound book in front of their faces as she left with a final "Fascinating, those prophecies."

The beast attacked again. 

Chapter 20 : Shadows In the Light

The forest was now calm around them, no sounds of fighting, the screaming still heard vaguely from a great distance. Elayne stopped running, behind her Melody and Damian did the same, watching around warily, no avaraen coming toward them, none running after them.

"I think we're safe here." Damian finally said.

"Right." Elayne nodded shortly, thinking for a brief moment. There was no doubt what was left to do now. "You two, stay here. I'll go back and help the others." She told them.

Racing away before they could protest, she ignored Damian's protests and Melody's panicked shout. There was no time to waste, she knew she could be of more help on the other battlefield. Even with only her knife striking, it would still be one more hand, one more soul opposing the Avaraen. Her feet barely even seemed to touch the ground as she leapt in a graceful run, wind rushing past her, her combat dagger, perhaps ten or so inches long, a bit more maybe, held in her grasp, the blade shining with a barely visible, nearly impossible to perceive soft green glow.

The shouting from the camp was not as loud as it had been, definitely, perhaps a sign that things were going better...or that the battle was already ending. The scientists had seemed to be on the verge of successfully locking themselves away in one of the barrack, though there was no way for sure to know if it would stop the Avaraen for long. After all, perhaps they could just float through the walls and attack, as they were shadow. She had to admit that she did not know that, had no idea just how much they could do. Night had fallen for a while now, and they would be made stronger. They had to be dealt with quickly.

As she raced, she tried as best as she could to come up with a plan, her mind examining and discarding thousand of ideas as her steps traced the way she had taken to bring Damian and Melody to safely. There was no obvious plan, no easy way to deal with them, not beyond the way to paralyze them for a while they had used at Danea's house, one that would be hard to implement in the middle of combat. Still...

The others were definitely there, and definitely in trouble, though at least they were still alive. That much was obvious as she broke through the foliage and reached the clearing, her dagger drawn. A nearby Avaraen got curious about her, but learned the price of curiosity as it fell to the ground, vanishing. One less enemy to consider, then, though with all those there were one was hardly a difference.

A flicker of her wrist, the red and white flash of a thrown pokeball, and Ivysaur materialized besides her, vines held ready.

"Carry me to them with your vines!" she ordered, pointing at her surrounded friends. 

Within moments, the careful grasp of the two vines carried her to reinforce her three tired allies, a second later, she was releasing another pokemon, this time her own oracle, as it had certain attacks that would be helpful to say the least.

"Sweet scent." She ordered quickly, and the pokemon released thick clouds of golden spores in the dark air, refreshing their body and fighting spirit. It would not heal wounds, but it would give them the strength to fight for another few minutes, perhaps even a few hours.

With renewed energy they struck out, spear, long sword, dagger and katana biting in the ranks of the Avaraen, wounding them with weapons that seared their bodies. More Avaraen fell, and though there was yet no end to the tide, it was coming closer.

___________________________

Walking back outside the cave, Syraelle smirked. The nine were all in very deep trouble, indeed. Or rather, the seven among them who where known. Three facing one of the most powerful avaraen ever known, the others in the middle of a sea of lesser Avaraen fighting for their life...

They were lost already, and she had the book of prophecies they had come to claim. Quickly, she tore out the page she was after, and put the book in her back pocket.

She did not notice when it came out of it, nor did she see it floating away to the outstretched hand of a cloaked man, a hand surrounded in a strange blue glow...

With a smile, Kyle Stery put the book in his pocket, and turned to watch the battle.

"Maybe I should give them a hand..." he mused.

_______________________

Her katana flashing to meet those tentacles that came at her, Misty tried desperately to dodge those she could not cleave without stepping over the edge. Sabrina would hit the tentacles with her starspire-tipped staff, pushing them around her as she shielded herself with her psychic powers, and Tanya would simply use her owns to improve her agility, making herself an impossible to strike target.

Yet, for every tentacle destroyed, another rose, for each one that fell and vanished, a new one would come at them and force them to act quickly or face the searing pain of the touch of the dark creatures. It was an hopeless fight.

Rolling pebbles from up the cliff came at her, she narrowly avoided being struck on the head. One tentacle had broken them apart from the dreadful heights, so it seemed. The few pebbles that did not fall on the small platform continued their travel to shatter on the rocks far below, heralding perhaps the fate that would befall Misty, Tanya and Sabrina.

With a burst of courage, Misty tried to break through the defensese of the beast, only to be pushed back as the tentacles seared her arms, though many of them fell and vanished, and for once she actually struck the source of a tentacle. The one she struck at the source did not grow back, vanished forever. It was nearly impossible, a feat requiring great sacrifices, but at least it proved the creature could be harmed in a permanent way.

More tentacles that the creature had not yet brought to bear raced toward her.

_________________________________

Ice and steel fell on the throngs of attacking Avaraen, crystal encasing them, steel shattering them. They fell and more rose, endless tide of darkness threatening to swallow the four who fought against them. With the renewed strength that Tanya had brought them with her Chikorita, they were again able to fight for a while longer.

Ash's cut avaraen after avaraen from his right hand, while from his left he released freezing beams of ice. Slowing down the onslaught, Rafael and Rafleen froze hundreds of avaraen as they released their own icy powers. The battle raged on, humans against avaraen, pokemkon helping their masters as they could.

The door of the barrack opened, and crackling energy came out of it, bolts of thunder sizzling throughout the field as they burned the many Avaraen that stood, riddling their bodies with blasts of light, causing them to vanish. Raiken needed no order as he saw this, releasing his own thunderbolts in the fray, a devastating assault.

The source of the original lightning was soon revealed as a young man, perhaps twenty or twenty-five of age, rushed out of the barrack carrying some strange weapon, attacking the Avaraen with it.

And against all hope, Avaraen fell to it, too. The young man swung his strange vaguely spear-like implement, a spear with an axe head replacing the point, at the creatures, and they fell just as surely as they fell to Ash's katana, to Jessie's sword, to Elayne's dagger, to James' spear. He had blonde hair, wore glasses, certainly did not look like a fighter, rather like a researcher...

Yet there he was, fighting just like any other of them, swinging his polearm with fierce fury, letting crackling energy run through the blade to increase the devastation. Raiken summoned more power, the fierce wrath of heaven coming from the small pokemon in a devastating assault that seemed bent on clearing the path to the barracks. A Jolteon appeared in the door of the barracks, the spiked beast firing fierce flash of lightning as well, adding to the devastation in the rank of the Avaraen. It was not enough to defeat them, of course, but it would put them out of the way for a while.

Racing, Ash and his companions made their way to the barracks door, and safety. Relief flooding him, he made it through the final few feet separating him from the door, and finally entered.

The door closed behind them with a loud clang, and Ash let himself fall to the ground, breathing heavily, as his companions did the same.

____________________________

Another crashing tentacle, another quick slice as the beast continued its gruesome assault. Another tentacle to grow, too, once the first was sliced. Relentlessly, Misty tried to fight, knowing that Syraelle had been careful to block off their retreat. 

With a shout. Tanya found her way past the ennemy defenses, taking a quick slice at the root, two more tentacles lost out of a hundred. That made three down, yet nearly all of them to go. It was an impossible fight, she knew it, they knew it. Weariness in her bones, Misty sliced again, another attack, in hope that they would manage to get beyond the enemy defenses, to take a killing strike on the opposition.

Sabrina seemed to lure the strikes of the creatures away from them all, perhaps creating to the strange being illusions of their presence where they were not, another way to buy them all that much more of a fighting chance. But it would not, could not be enough. Even with another tentacle that fell to a daring move from Tanya, dodging a tentacle and using her momentum to slid closer to the being, moving under its defenses, taking quite a few swings. One tentacle fell, then another. 

Five were now down, six as Misty made her way past the defenses despite the pain inflicted by the searing touch of the tentacles, seven as she took a second swing before being pushed back, taking down another. The reduction in number did not mean a slowing down of the assault, the remaining tentacles striking around as efficiently as they did before, when there had been two more.

With horror, Misty realized that this time the beast was not pushing her back toward one of the wall, but toward the cliff, toward the point where she would fall in emptiness. She fought, screaming and hacking, to avoid being pushed back, but searing pain and a wall of darkness blocked her way, pushing her back, always closer to the cliff.

She did not see the rock, could not see it, and as she lost her balance and fell backward, she knew she would not manage to land in any way that would let her stay on the ledge.

____________________________

"Who are you?" One of the scientist asked Ash and his companion as soon as they managed to rise again.

"Ash Ketchum. I'm a pokemon master." He replied quickly. "They're my traveling companions."

"Well, whoever you are, thanks for trying to help." The blonde man replied.

"Wait a minute...Ash Ketchum...don't I know you?" The voice and the accent were unmistakably those of Eve, the young prodigy.

"Yeah, my friends and I blew up that cliff a while ago, you know, back when the two big pokemon were there..." he still breathed deeply, exertion settling in."

"Oh, right. That was a while ago, we found a lot since then..." she smiled. "Everything was going fine until that Syraelle arrived and insisted that we lead her in. When we told her no, she summoned those freaks to attack us." 

"Avaraen. Those are Avaraen." The blond replied. "I should know, they were my main field of study back in school."

"Bleh, they don't even exist."

"And what do you call those things outside? Why do you think those of us who got killed are fighting on their side now?" 

The scientist shut up, apparently out of explanations. 

"Sorry about that. It seems you already know Eve. I'm Jeffrey Surge, of the university of Vermillion. Since you're a pokemon master you probably met my uncle, Jonathan Surge."

"Yeah, I met him a few time." Ash nodded quickly, assessing the situation. Eve seemed to be in charge now, with Jeffrey Surge being another important member - would it only be because he apparently was armed with a weapon that would hurt Avaraen, and because just like Ash he apparently carried a soul gift. Apparently, and that was something to verify.

"How did you launch lightnings like that?" he asked.

"In other words, "am I right to assume you've received a soul gift like I have?" Yeah, you'd be right to think that. My raichu." The man seemed not to be very interested in saying more, something Ash could understand if he had lost a pokemon. "Nice weapons that you got there. Care to let me look at them?" He asked, perhaps to change the topic, perhaps out of interest.

"Why?" The question was worth asking, Ash decided.

"I'm an archaeologist, I like to look at old things, weapons especially." The reply came with a shrug.

Hesitating only a moment - after all, the man had just saved them all from the Avaraen, even if it only was for a little while - Ash handed him the blade. He carefully picked it up, using a tissue so as to avoid letting his breath on the bright edge. 

"If I'm right, the mark of the smith who made this should be somewhere...they had it that way all over Hosho and Kanto since they kicked the westerners out of here...." He explained what he was looking for, before finally stopping to look carefully at a little area under the guard. "I don't believe it." He breathed. "The royal smiths of Fuchsia. And from the date, that blade was made about a thousand years ago." He seemed awed already, when suddenly his awe seemed to increase tenfold. "From the look of it, I would even say it has to be..." he let it hanging, looking for another telltale sign. "It has to be it..." he continued his fevered search. "It IS! It's Fang, one of the last two weapon made by Yeshuan for the companions of dawn..." his awe seemed to be limitless. "You're so lucky..."

"What's wrong with him?" The question came from Elayne, the answer from Eve.

"It's an old legend...I mean, not the companions, those, they are an historical fact, a group of adventurer, though it's not known how much of what it's said they did really happened. The legend is that each of them had a unique weapon made especially for them by Yeshuan, the master smith of Fuschia. Yeshuan was..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the door to the barrack burst open under the forceful blows of those Avaraen who had possessed physical bodies, and hordes of Avaraen came in, shapeless shadow and soulless bodies.

________________________________

The empty air rushed against her skin as she fell down, coming ever closer to the jagged rocks below, the rocks that would split her open, kill her, destroy her, end her life. Green light, somehow, seemed to fill the world all around for a split second as she closed her eyes, barely perceiving it. 

She felt ground at last, but not ground as if she was hitting it at full speed, ground that was there, as if she had been on her feet waiting all that while and never falling. Sabrina and Tanya were with her, but she was not on the ledge where they had started, rather on another, higher than the one where the creature was.

The Avaraen seemed to perceive them still, coming upward along the cliff to attack them, but before it could reach them, a brilliant light appeared out of nowhere, a rising sun in the middle of the night, a beam of pure energy striking out and destroying the creature. A massive shadow flew in the sky, a shape not unfamiliar, that of a dragonite- but a dragonite larger than any she had ever seen before...

No.

She had never seen one larger, true, but it was not larger than any other she had ever seen. Or perhaps it was that she had, in fact, never seen one as large - because the one she had seen of that size before was the very same one now in front of her. It certainly seemed so, the more that she thought of it, that the one now there was the one she had seen once before, a long time ago, when she and Ash had first met Bill. It was, had to be the same dragonite, no two of that size could exist. Fear and awe mixed in a strange blend of emotions as she watched it majestically flying away, left wondering why it had come to help them at all. Below, there was no trace at all of the Avaraen, the shadow destroyed by a light brighter than any other, a light that had blazed on the creature for too long, to a point where it could no longer survive.

____________________________

Pain flashed in Ash's shoulder as the blade of a possessed scyther sank in his flesh, not deeply, but still enough to cause him do drop his sword in pain, a pain beyond any he had ever known. He fell back on the ground of the barrack and watched as an Avaraen came closer to him. The wound lured them, they wanted to possess him, obviously. An axe blade appeared as an halberd destroyed the creature, followed by a sizzling bolt of thunder.

The fight had not gone well so far, the Avaraen steadily pushing them back inside the barrack. Elayne, Jessie and James were with a small group of scientist, fighting as best as they could, but slowly being cornered, and the other group, with only Jeffrey and Ash actually able to fight, had done no better.

Now, with Ash down, it would obviously do far worst. Trying valiantly to hold the katana in his left hand, he swung it clumsily at the attacker, hoping to push them back at least a little despite the atrocious pain.

He fell on the ground again, pushed aside by a scientist apparently under the power of an Avaraen. He tried to rise again, and watched as another Avaraen came toward him. This time, Jeffrey was too far to help, his halberd would not destroy the creature...

But yet it vanished as blue light seemed to explode inside him. All around, Avaraen began to disappear or flee, the strongest running wounded, the weaker dying on the spot. Blue explosions filled the barrack, but also the outside, and the night seemed to vanish in a firework of blue light.

Getting to his feet again despite the pain, Ash waked to the door, wondering what the source of the mysterious phenomenon could be. He could not see any possible explanation, none that he at least could think of.

Misty, Tanya and Sabrina walked out of the cave a few second after he reached the door and stood there, letting his hand rest on the doorway for support. No Avaraen were left and the three women looked like they too had had their share of fighting.

"Syraelle was there. She took the book." Misty reported, kicking a pebble in frustration.

"That book?" The voice that came to them was mocking. "How strange that I have it right here if Syraelle took it..." It was also a voice they all knew well, one that explained the blue fireworks, though Ash would not have imagined the owner of the voice had that much power. As he watched Kyle, in his usual hooded cloak, hand the book to Misty, Ash suddenly felt himself weakening, and falling to the ground as his eyes closed.


	5. Destiny's Path

Part 5 : Footsteps of destiny

Chapter 21 : Prophecies

The hospital of Viridian was quite modern and well equipped, and the personal were extremely competent, or at least they appeared to be as far as Misty was concerned. Which was a very good thing, considering as far as she could tell they held the fate of Ash, her Ash, in their hands.

"It's not too bad...he got here quickly enough, and the blade didn't manage to damage anything really vital." A doctor reported quickly, at one point.

It was relieving to know, though the image of her Ash falling on the ground, covered in blood and seemingly lifeless would only be erased when she held him in her arms again, perhaps not even then. It would be an image that would remain etched in her mind for a long time.

Even now, beyond the windows of the operation room, he seemed lifeless, his face empty, unmoving, his eyes dull. The doctors and the nurses moved all around him, trying to repair the damage. Ash had been lucky, one of the doctors told them. Had the angle of the blade been different, he might have forever lost his right arm, or worse, the blade could have sliced deep in his neck, killing him.

The others had all gathered at the Viridian gym to study the prophecies after Giovanni had sent his helicopters to get them. Even two of the archaeologists, Eve and a blond man who apparently was the nephew of the Vermilion gym leader, had followed, as Damian had apparently offered them some explanations concerning the fact that Ash carried Fang.

Even to his sister, his reasons for wanting them to come had sounded pale, unconvincing, as distracted and distraught as she had been.

Elayne was, surprisingly, not with Damian but rather had decided to come to the hospital with Misty. She had given no reason, had not been asked any by Misty either. If she wanted to come and did not want to explain why, it was all right as far as Misty was concerned. Lots of things were right as far as she was concerned, or at least did not bother her. There was not much she cared about beyond the young man in the operation room.

Even the reassuring words of the doctors did not help much, not when a tiny voice in the deep recesses of her mind kept whispering that they were lying to make her happier, that in fact Ash was on the verge of dying. It was a voice that would not shut up, no matter how hard Misty tried to ignore it, a voice that would make itself heard no matter what.

It was a voice Misty wished did not exist, did not want to hear, did not want to believe...but yet, she could not help but wonder if perhaps the words were true, if perhaps her mind was protecting itself in illusions born of the lies of doctors, from the harsh pain of death.

Looking around briefly, desperately trying to find something to occupy her mind yet not wanting too, she barely noticed the girl with green-blue hair sitting nearby, one that she almost seemed to remember, yet not, as if her only memory of her was of a split second where she had been in her sight before vanishing forever.

She went back to worrying, nothing seemed to be able to stop it. Ash might be dying as she waited there, he might be already dead...if he was, then her heart was dead, too. No matter how long it would keep on beating, if Ash was dead, she knew she would be dead inside too, a zombie, as if an avaraen had possessed her and her soul was condemned to watch.

Emptiness forever, that's what was she was sure waited for her, what the doctors would come out to condemn her to any moment. Oh, they would put a good face on it, but it still would rip out her heart and destroy it.

She would rather die than have to face this moment, but she just couldn't...not while there still was a faint chance that the voice, the tiny voice that was out to worry her, was wrong.

The doctors walked out of the room, her heart leapt with fright. The nurses were behind, pushing a still pale-looking Ash, with a bandage on his shoulder, on a stretcher. He did not look much more alive than he had before to Misty, though at least there was no more blood.

"Is he dead?" She asked worriedly of one doctor that passed nearby. "Why aren't you taking care of him anymore?" she had no control over her voice as the panicked part of her mind suddenly moved in to ask questions of the crew.

"Calm down, calm down." The man smiled, apparently used to that kind of behavior. "He's all right. We're taking him to his room so that he can rest and recover...we'll keep him here for a while, but he should wake up soon."

A sigh of utter relief came out of her lips, and the voice, though it would return to question the words of the medical crew at some point, she was sure, vanished. She rose and followed, Elayne behind. Soon they were sitting again, this time Elayne outside and her inside, sitting by the bed in which Ash rested.

Tiredness started to settle in as she waited, her eyes growing heavy. She could not, would not fall asleep while her heart could wake up at any moment, but could not fight the gravity that seemed to drag her eyes toward the ground, to knock her in a nightmare-filled sleep.

Her eyes blinked open at the sound of her own name, at the touch of a hand on her arm, a touch she knew well. The hand belonged to the man who held her soul and heart, the dark-haired young man who was the key to everything in her world.

"Ash!" She cried in relief at seeing him moving, living, breathing again, and moved closer to the bed, awkwardly hugging him, bringing back memories of a time long past - or was it so long? - when they had been in another hospital in far-off Olivine, another time when she had just been rescued from the hold on her mind that had made her Shadow, another time where he had been wounded, another time, the time where they had finally stopped pretending. The one magical moment where what had then been her deepest, most secret dreams had taken shape to become realities. "My Ash."

"I'm glad to see you too Misty." He smiled, hugging her just as awkwardly, wincing a little as the rapid movement apparently sent pain shooting through his wounded shoulder. She winced in turn, regretting that she hadn't thought about finding a way to avoid causing him such pain. "Don't worry, it isn't much pain...not now, anyway..."

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I was afraid for you, Ash...I...I was so sure I had lost you...forever..." 

Ash gently caressed her cheek, a soothing touch that at the same time sent out glorious ringing bells throughout her whole being. Ash was alive, he was not dead, would not die soon, he would heal. The voice had been wrong, the doctors right, as was so often the case, or so it seemed.

"What happened anyway with you?" He asked her wonderingly. "The others probably told you what happened to us, unless you were too busy worrying about me." His eyes gave her a tender look filled with love, a look she returned.

"I heard some of it from Elayne earlier, though I wasn't listening much." She blushed a little. "I was too busy worrying about losing you to really listen, but I did hear most of it. So I guess I should tell you what happened to us..." she told the story, how they had raced through the cave, how they had fought the Avaraen. His face filled with horror as he told her of the monster and its ability to grow back whatever they destroyed in the blinking of an eye. The same horror only grew when she came to the part of her falling off the cliff. And it slowly turned in puzzlement as she told of how she had found herself on her two feet, on a higher ledge, rather than dead or dying, at the foot of the cliff, and of how the enormous dragonite they had both once seen had destroyed the Avaraen.

"What happened when you fell, exactly?" he asked again.

"Well...there was a flash of green light, and where one second I had been falling off the ledge, the second after I was on a higher ledge...as if someone had frozen time and moved me from one spot to another, somehow...." She tried to explain the odd idea, when suddenly something struck her. "That girl! That's where I saw her!" The logic of it struck her. She had in fact seen the young woman for only the tiniest part of a second, though it had probably been longer than that to the woman. Though she had never actually seen her, not in the normal definition of see, her mind had still registered the presence of the young woman.

"Who?" 

"A girl outside...She has odd blue-green hair...When I saw her I had an odd feeling as if had seen her without seeing somehow...my mind registered what she looked like but simply could not see what she was doing...it only clicked now." She explained. Had she thought it would do any good, she would have raced out to find the young woman, but it certainly was too late now.

"Wait...that story of how she rescued you...doesn't that ring a bell?" Ash suddenly asked, his eyes wide with astonishment.

"Yeah..." The similarity of the two events struck her suddenly. "It does, doesn't it...the green light, something no longer being where it was...it's just like when Gary died..." her voice was slow as an inkling of a possibility dawned on her.

"Or maybe...just maybe..." Ash apparently had been struck by the same idea.

"Maybe...maybe I should say 'seemed to die'..."

They stood stunned for a moment. The very possibility that Gary had not died but rather had been carried away by some unknown force to be healed was unsettling, to say the least.

"And there's something else odd...Have you seen what Kyle did? And remember what he did in Viridian?" Ash asked, getting a single nod from her as an answer. "Do you think there's a psychic in the world, human or pokemon, who can do that much? Who can actually manipulate the elements and the whole world with psychic powers like that?"

"None that I ever heard of..." she shook her head, wonderingly. "Except...no...I seem...that much power...it rings a bell, as if I had seen it before but somehow the memories themselves of who did it and how it happened were hidden...." A shake of her head as she tried to understand the weird feeling.

"Exactly the same thing for me...I seem to remember it having to do with us being in that harbor waiting for a ship for New Island without reason..."

"Yeah...we never did find out why we were in a harbor where the only ships leaving went to New Island..." Another slow nod, remembering the one event that was perhaps the oddest of their adventures together, until they had started meddling in things of prophecies and war of gods.

"I'm sure there's something having to do with that much power and that trip to New Island we were about to take without even wanting to go there..." He shook his head. "Or maybe we actually went there, the prophecies says that I was on New Island when it was destroyed, but I just don't have the smallest memory of it happening..."

"Neither do I..." she hugged him again, deciding to put an end to the deep questioning and to move to a far more interesting activity, namely feeling safe and warm in his arms, reminded of the fact that he was still alive, still with her.

_______________________________

The Thunderer, master of lightning, a gift born from a friendship undying

A sorrow that never ends, a heart turned toward the lost past

A gift born from sorrow saved all, but one that truly mattered

Knowledge beyond knowledge, mind knowing

The sky is no limit, if you know how to hope.

Reading and re-reading the passage, looking at the halberd the young scientist had carried, there was only one possible conclusion, quite obvious. Jeffrey Surge could call lightning out of thin air, a soul gift preventing the friendship between him and his raichu from dying. The sorrow that never ended was that of that death, and his heart was turned toward the lost past in that he was extremely interested in studying things and legends from a forgotten past, and in that he was apparently still sore from the loss of his raichu.

With the story he head heard concerning Jeffrey Surge since returning and having a database search of the league information ordered, the next line was equally obvious, as the gift born from the death of his pokemon had allowed him to save all the prisoners and many pokemon, but yet it had not been enough to save his own raichu, would never have been enough. The fourth line indicated that he knew far more than most, another part of the description that fitted him well.

Reading on, he made a mental note to check just how much Jeffrey knew. He had his weapon already, and his oracle apparently, thought that was just a random guess on Damian's part.

The Lost soul, blazing light reborn

A flower of blood, doom of her own blood

Redeemed in the sacrifice, An Oracle thought lost

The seeker opens the gate for her to return

Flower torn reunited, light born of darkness

Another part that made much sense now, and one with only one possible meaning, beyond doubt. May Oak, once a general of the Crimson Lotus, had to be the missing Lost Soul, the one that Damian would not meet in life as a member of the nine. He would die, and in the instant of his death, he supposed, the "gate" to whatever it was that waited beyond would be open for her to return. 

The one intriguing part was the one about the oracle. The oracle of Change, the one matching the champion of mankind, which the Lost Soul obviously was, was always human. The line about the oracle seemed to mean that her oracle was someone everyone thought had died, and the part that linked it with the Lost Soul's redemption made it almost impossible to believe that Gary Oak was not the oracle in question - and that he was dead. More matter to consider later, if he had the time.

Reading on, he fell on another intriguing part, one that was about Elayne and which he did not understand. Sabrina, who just so happened by "luck" as she put it to be passing nearby, seemed to find the passage very funny when he showed it to her, seemingly understanding what he could not grasp.

The Huntress, who shall loose all dear

Save her very own life, and another, memory of the seeker

A great love seared, a soul leaving as destiny required

A seed of what was lost, a soul to be protected

Destiny beyond destiny, Powers beyond belief.

No matter how hard he tried to understand, that one part made no sense to him, and he browsed onward, looking for clues as to the location of the fight while the others still relaxed. He knew from the call Elayne had given him on her cell phone earlier that they had two weeks anyway, so he could afford to take some time.

On the evening of the twelfth day, he finally found a clue, though sketchy. Still, it was all he needed; he seemed to understand it on sight.

Darkness in a glittering peak not of gold

A world were beasts of darkness await to swallow the light

Guide your steps far from under the sky, in the bowels of what you fight for

There shall be the map, the last piece of knowledge you need

The location of the fight you will never see.

"Silver Cave" He whispered as he saw it. "There's a map about where the fight will happen in silver cave."

The glittering peak not of gold, meant Silver Mountain, darkness meant a cave, something which was confirmed by the third line, the bowels of the world meaning a cave too, obviously. At last he knew where to go, what to do. It was time to move.

Chapter 22 : Into the Darkness

"Not a cave...please..."

The protest came from Tanya who, apparently, despite her hardiness, had a lot of things that she intensely disliked. Such as caves, sleeping outside while the sun was up, and probably a few others besides which she had conveniently forgotten to mention.

"I don't like caves anymore than you do, Tanya, but it's not like we exactly have a choice." Pointing out the truth, Damian felt like running from the gaping mouth of the earth that seemed ready to swallow them. He knew that to be false, of course, he was no longer a little kid, but still he could not help but remember those old fears.

"Guys, if we want to get SOMEWHERE before the next millenium..." Ash was apparently beginning to tire of waiting for them as he tapped his foot on the ground.

"He's got a point." Misty added. With a sigh, picking up his bag and sending out the rapidash he still had from their early days of traveling, he made himself ready for their journey. The pokemon would have to carry the supplies as it was apparent that they would be in the cave for a long time - months according to the prophecies, at last if he read them well. Upon hearing that, Ash and Misty had been adamant on taking a few days to make sure they were completely prepared.

It was not something Damian could blame them for, not wanting to venture in a cave for a long time without preparation after their trip through one cave two months or so before had nearly cost them both their lives. So instead of leaving immediately, they had made some arrangements with the league, obtaining supplies in heavy amounts that their Rapidash would carry.

Lance, of course, had been worried about their plans, but had had to admit, after some careful debating, that there was no way around it. Damian had been quite proud of having managed to defeat in a debate the Kanto chief of state, but now, staring at the gaping maw, he could not help but wish he had lost.

Now they had food - non-perishable food, of course, as taking food that would turn bad in a few days on a trip that would last months was not exactly a brilliant strategy - and their water pokemon would make sure that they would always have something to drink, should there be no underground source or river on their way, something that was doubtful as far as Damian knew.

It was time to go, and again Damian wished there was a way around it, a way not to enter in the cave. He looked at their group, and it's three new members - or rather, two new members and a recovered one. Kyle had decided to go along with them for a while again, and he had presented to them a young woman whom he called Aimée. There was something vaguely familiar in the features of the young woman, as if he perhaps had already seen a picture that looked like a younger her. Still, to Damian, that was not much to worry about.

What was far more worrying was Kyle's astounding power, something that was by far too reminiscent of a project that had nearly ruined Team Rocket, shortly after he had joined. He had been one of the few to know about the project, and he knew that it had never really ended, at least not in the sense that all evidence had been destroyed. Mewtwo was still out there, and Kyle's powers were disquietingly similar to those exhibited by the dreaded psychic creature in his short months of alliance with Damian's father.

Of all their new or recovered companions the only one who didn't bother Damian in the slightest was Jeffrey Surge. He had offered to come along on his own when he had heard them talking about the prophecies, saying he had always been interested in what few scraps of those he had found in the libraries around Kanto. When Damian had shown him the passage talking about the thunderer, his only answer had been a good-natured laugh, and a comment that then there wasn't much choice but for him to come along. His brilliant mind would be a valuable asset in their travels, not to mention his ability to unleash thunder.

"It's really time to get in Damian." The insisting voice was Ash's.

Reluctantly, Damian set one foot forward then the other, slowly stepping in the shadowed cave where there would soon be only darkness and the light of the flames of their rapidash. A shudder ran down his spine, and he stepped forward again.

The first few days of traveling through the cave went surprisingly well. The battle at Pokemopolis had done a lot to help them remember they were a team and as such supposed to work together, and there were precious few fights, compared to what there had been since the siege of Danea's home.

There were a few little fights, mostly involving him and Tanya, something he could not help. The girl's general opinion of men seemed to apply at full strength to him as far as she was concerned, and to Damian, the fact that someone would have such a general opinion of him would make that person a tiresome idiot. It didn't matter that those were only simple opinions without much substance.

Their usual walking order had Ash, as always, in the lead, Fang drawn or at least ready to be drawn, with a rapidash at his side providing some lighting. Misty was just beside him, ready to draw her own sword, Crest according to Jeffrey. Kyle followed just behind, and to have him so close to his sister was a slight source of worry to Damian. There was no telling if he would go insane or not, as Mewtwo had, though it could be argued that there had been valid reasons behind Mewtwo's apparent insanity. His friend Aimée was there as well unarmed, and there was no helping the strange sense of wonder when he came to think of how she would fight. What powers could she have?

Elayne and Damian themselves went next, side by side and hand in hand, their rapidash following. Elayne had no weapons drawn, none that she could take out on a moment notice, though her dagger would be a powerful weapon if there was need, and while it would not be available as readily as it would if her hand had not been busy holding his, it could still be drawn in time for battle.

Following them, Sabrina and Tanya were warily probing the area with their mind for any trace of someone or something that might turn out to be a menace. There was no telling what could hide within the cave, and they all had agreed that it would be better to keep a strong watch out for any attack. Jessie and James flanked the two of them on either side, ready to take on any physical threat that the psychics would not see coming. Jeffrey was a slight bit behind, also ready to do the same, while Melody was in the middle of the group, perhaps again wondering why she was given no way to fight.

Zubats, Golbats, many pokemon appeared as they made their way, though of course they did not attack, perhaps cowering before superior numbers. In the light of the flames of their Rapidash, the walls seemed to shine, a strange glow that came of magnificent crystalline veins that ran everywhere. There was more than one kind of crystal in the unexplored depths of the cave, diamonds even being found from time to time, alongside quartz, amethyst, and the rarest two veins, starspire and, even more surprising, the few blocks of the rare adamantine, the stone used for the Hoshoan blades. 

There was no menace, not according to Tanya and Sabrina, not according to Kyle either, nothing they could feel as a threat coming for them. It seemed as if for once they were safe from those who would harm them.

Days passed, as they quietly walked, stopping for the night in what amounted to defensible places, perhaps a slightly higher part of the cave, or a place where the wall had been dug in by some unknown force, causing a deeper area to appear, one that could easily be held against an attacker. They would then drop their supplies from the pokemon that held them, recall the pokemon, and rest. 

Time went by still, hours and days flowing away, eternal darkness only broken by the light of a few flames, their only companion. Anything could be hiding, waiting to take a strike at them, as far as Damian was concerned. It was tiresome, old fears coming back of the monster hidden under the bed or in the closet, except this time it was the Avaraen behind the rock, the rabid pokemon in that spot of shadow.

Damian almost wished something would happen to break the monotony and stop him from thinking too much about what might.

____________________________

There was no warning, despite Sabrina and Tanya searching the world around them with their mind, despite Kyle doing the same; there was no shout from them betraying the upcoming attack. They were taken by surprise just as much as anyone else as eight great beasts charged out of a side tunnel. Eight of them, each nearly twice the height of Ash. He recoiled as they charged, drawing his sword as he dodged to the side to avoid the raging beasts that came at him.

"At least those aren't Avaraen." The voice was Misty's, talking as she swung Crest at the attackers, only to see it bouncing off the armored plates that covered the body of her target, not even leaving so much as a scratch on it. "On the other hand, if they were Avaraen maybe we could harm them."

Blasts of psychic energy flew out of three outstretched hands, blue light lancing out from fingers ready to fight, matching the glow in their eyes. Ash had seen those powers being used before, more than once, and expected the creatures, the like of which he had never seen before, to be wasted away by the devastating attack.

No such thing happened as the spears of light bounced harmlessly off the same plates that had deflected Misty's sword strike. Some of the huge beasts charged at Damian, as Sabrina and Tanya concentrated on using their psychic powers again - but obviously the pokemon were of the dark element, and therefore as surely immune to psychic powers as Fenrir - or Misty.

Drawing from a pocket, Ash reached for his pokedex for the first time in long months, perhaps even a year, taking aim at one of the creatures. The machine knew of the beast, that much soon was obvious, but before it could even start describing it, one of them stomped on the ground, and the seismic wave resulting caused the device to fall, breaking as it struck the ground.

"Those are Tyranitar!" Jeffrey shouted over the rumble of the earthquake. "Rock/dark!" He added quickly. "Fighting pokemon are our best bets, if we have any!"

Ash knew that part of it already, the weakness of the elements having long since registered on his brain. He knew dark types, due to their very nature of concentrating their energy against the insidious, unseen attacks of the psychic pokemon, were particularly weak to direct assaults, such as those of fighters. Otherwise, water types would also be of some help, as they tended to wash away rock type, while the powerful roots and vines of grass pokemon were efficient at eroding rock types.

"Could someone help?" Damian yelled, narrowly dodging the armored fist of a tyranitar coming toward him - only to be knocked back by another, sent towards the wall where he slumped down.

"Ivysaur, Tangela, Gloom, Chikorita, all of you out now!" Elayne yelled, her eyes burning with the fires of revenge. Her grass pokemon appeared, already in fighting position, already casting out sharp elemental strikes at the enemy.

"Starmie, Seadra, Golduck, Lapras, you go too!" Misty added, her own water pokemon reinforcing the line.

"Rafael, I choose you!" Ash yelled out in turn, calling his precious water pokemon to back up what Misty and Elayne had already sent out.

"Machamp! Go!" It was a surprise to see that Jeffrey actually owned a fighting pokemon, especially one as powerful as Machamp. "Cross chop some of them out of it!"

"Victreebell! Get out, and don't you dare attack me! Rafleen, same for you!" James called out some reinforcements of his own.

The battle soon raged chaotically. The grass pokemon would cast out powerful spores that would numb their enemies, or some instead drop seeds on them, seeds that would in turn slowly grow roots inside the creatures, fissuring their armored body, weakening them to the point where Ash could actually use his weapon in the fighting - or to the point where any of them could.

Brilliant sprays of water eroded dramatically the same armor, another weakening strategy that would in turn make strikes easier, whether it was the strikes of their weapons or the strikes of Machamp's powerful cross chop attack that fell again and again on the enemies.

A tyranitar charged at Misty, raised fist ready to strike, only to be pushed back toward the wall by the combined power of two brilliant jets of water sent out by Starmie and Seadra. His armor washed away, he stood no chance against the swift strike from Jeffrey's halberd, a strike that took his head.

Two more came toward the fallen Damian, but their tactic proved a failure as vines encircled them, holding them back with a strength that was hardly believable. Held in position by Ivysaur and Victreebell, it was only too easy for Tangela to cover both of them in seeds that would ultimately destroy their heavy rocky armor.

Two more fell as they tried to select a target, frozen by deadly beams of ice sent out by Lapras on the one hand and Ash himself on the other, removing a threat that had seemed far too close to him at the time. A second beam of ice narrowly missed the one that was closer to Misty, who narrowly dodged the fist that struck at her in retaliation.

Golduck would not let his mistress be attacked so, of course, and within an instant a new beam of ice struck out, this time not missing the target, as a third tyranitar was frozen in place. Six of the eight terrible creatures who had attacked them where now down, leaving only two to be dealt with, something that looked quite easier to manage than the eight of before. 

A powerful strike behind the head of another one, delivered by the back of the hand of the powerful Machamp, actually penetrated through the thick armor, reaching the spine of the creature, and a seventh fell, crumpling on the ground as it was struck.

The last one, at that point alone and faced with raging enemies, knowing it had no chances of winning, not without reinforcements, fled back in the old side tunnel. Ash knew, however, from what he had understood of their cries and shouts, that he would all too soon be back, with greater numbers, perhaps in sufficient numbers to overwhelm them even.

Damian was already getting back on his feet by that time, recovering from the attack, and those who had fallen in the earthquake were doing much the same, while sickening sounds marked the end of those tyranitars immobilized but not dead, the sound of the swords and spears of Jessie and James digging through their armor to reach the flesh.

Chapter 23 : Find your Way

"He'll be back. With reinforcements." As Damian rose shakily, Ash's voice filled the cave. He knew the urgency of the situation, knew they could not afford to stay idle for long. They had to race, and no choice but to race forward, despite the fact that two of them had apparently taken some wounds in the battle.

"How do you know?" Tanya's voice was suspicious.

"I understand pokemon, remember? They were defending their nest, so if we stay around, they'll think of us as a threat. We've got to get away - and before they come back." Quick words, carrying the fact that they had to go - now.

Misty shook herself; apparently she had not completely avoided the swing of that armored fist earlier, and had been made a little dizzy by the strike. Still, she seemed to have mostly recovered already, and they had no time to wait and check to make sure Misty and Damian were alright, not unless...

The idea was hovering on the verge of murderous; though the pokemon would probably make it out all right and eventually manage to free themselves. Probably being, of course, the problematic word. Had it been a certainty that they would not be harmed in the plan, Ash would have told the others right out, but as it was...

As it was, they had no choices but to stay there, not with Damian and Misty not able to afford a frantic race right now. As it was they had to prevent the Tyranitar from attacking, be it only for a while, for long enough for their two friends to heal.

As it was, there was no choice but to go ahead with his crazy plan - and quickly. He motioned for the others, and the pokemon, to come closer, and explained the situation to them. They did not like his idea, not anymore than he did, but there was no other choice, they all could see that too. They all had to see it. Sabrina was first to nod, some of the pokemon following, then the rest of the group, one after the other.

Water undermined the walls of the side cavern, vines carried off the rocks that made the wall, as psychic powers blasted more of those into fine dust and as brute strength was used to finish the job. There was one simple way to prevent the Tyranitar from returning - to block their way back. Perhaps, if things went wrong, they would have starved a tribe to death, but it was a situation of kill or be killed, and in such situations, everything was fair play, especially if the chances of actual death was lower with your plan.

With the entrance collapsed, the Tyranitar would be able to dig out a side tunnel, would have to in order to leave their nest. That would surely buy them the time needed to recover from the battle and get away. 

"How are they?" Ash turned away from the work at the entrance to face their two wounded companions, who had been made to sit down again at the insistence of Jeffrey, under the claim that they would harm themselves, or might at least, if they didn't sit still long enough for him to check them up at least.

"I'm fine, he just finished checking me up." Misty's words were a welcome relief after the moment of panic Jeffrey's word hat caused.

"Great." With a smile, he went to hug her as Jeffrey continued checking Damian up. Unlike his sister, he had not managed to dodge most of the force of the blow, and had been hit at nearly full strength.

"He should be fine, but he'll need an hour or two resting before he's up to moving around again." The report was quick and to the point. Jeffrey apparently did not like long discourse and would much rather think than talk. Which was fine as far as Ash was concerned: one over-verbose member was already hard enough on their collective nerves.

The minutes went by slowly, soon accompanied by the sound of scratching, digging, as the Tyranitar obviously sought to repair the damage that had been done. They would have to leave soon if they wanted a chance to survive, but could not leave, not until Jeffrey gave them his okay on Damian's state.

"He's ready to go now." The young archaeologist, who apparently had taken first aid classes as well as the many other things he had studied, reported finally.

"Good. I was beginning to get edgy, that digging sound is getting too close for me to feel safe." Jumping on his feet, Ash led them away from the collapsed tunnel, knowing there would be no need for time to pack, as they had cautiously decided not to unpack for a start, leaving only with what they had.

They were nearly out of sight of the tunnel when the sounds of collapsing rubble made it clear the vicious beasts had broken through - and quite possibly had them in sight again. The darkness made it impossible to know for sure, for Ash and his companions, but to creatures used to living in the depths of the cave, it would prove no problem for them to see through the shadow.

There was no way to see for sure, but soon enough they knew for sure still as the sound of heavy footsteps raged through the cave, coming their way. They had been seen, and were being hunted. There would be no time to collapse a tunnel again, so they had to find another way to slow down the pursuers enough to escape.

The idea came soon enough, remembered from their earlier fight with the creatures, an idea that made definite sense. The terrain around them was not yet quite right for it to be used, but judging from the way the walls were coming closer and closer, it would soon be. Hopefully they would not get too close for them to pass through.

The narrow passage Ash had been looking for came quickly, a stretch barely large enough for a Tyranitar to fit in, and one that ran on quite a distance, perhaps five meters or so. Summoning Aysen, having James summon Rafleen, and Misty Seadra and Lapras, he fought with them, concentrating chilly beams of air on the walls, beams that covered those walls in thick ice - to the point where the whole passage was filled with ice. It would literally take hours to break through the ice, while it took minutes to make it up, ensuring that they could fill up each passage in turn, thus steadily increasing the distance between them and the monstrosities.

The road continued forward, and each narrow passage for a few days was filled up with ice to make sure there would be not much of a hunt, if any; pure crystal ending the hopes of the Tyranitar to catch them. The pounding footsteps vanished from their life, replaced again by the silence of the caves, a silence that was definitely welcome. 

Making their way forward, they saw more wonders, more uncut gems lying on the ground, many of them precious, and none of them could resist the temptation of putting a few in their pockets. No matter how important the quest they were on was, there was no harm in picking a handful of little pebbles on their way in a cave, after all. The fact that those pebbles could be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, of course was an incentive to pick them up. Winning the fight against the dark one would not ensure them a life of luxury or at least a decent living, whereas money might.

They walked further, deeper within the caves, days and days passing by, most of them without even a sign of anyone who would hurt them. Sometimes, far away, they would hear the roars of the Tyranitar, but even those sounded too far away to pose a threat, and not coming closer. 

A feeling of safety, security seemed to settle over the whole group. They were no longer as picky as to their resting places. Sabrina and Tanya alternated now, taking turns at scanning the world around with their powers rather than doing it both at once for better coverage. Ash and Misty, the others too for that matter, were not ready to draw their weapons at a moments notice anymore - they could still reach for them quickly, but still, it would be precious instants lost.

Precious instants they already had too few of. It was dangerous, Ash knew it, could not help but remember it - but could not help but to not do a thing about it too. It was the way things now were for them, there was no helping it, not in any way he could find. They would not start being wary again without a good reason, a reason they did not have, not yet. Distant threats would not help, not now that their edge was dulled by the passage of time.

Another two weeks passed, and it was already closing in to a month, a month since they had entered the cave, two weeks since the terrible fight. Day and night had long since vanished to them as they made their way through the twisted paths of the forgotten cave, deep, below the deepest cave of the world.

A new cave finally appeared, not a tunnel but a full-fledged cave, larger and far higher. There was some kind of eerie light in it, perhaps coming from some sort of fungi on the wall, or perhaps from some other unknown source, a vein of crystal that reached to the surface and carried the light down in the depths, or a crystal that glowed on its own.

Still, whatever its source, the eerie glow was well present, and offered them for the first time in days the chance to see a little, perhaps as well as they could see under the full moon on a normal night. It was not much, for sure, but it was far more than they had expected.

It was also enough for them all to see the enormous Avaraen standing there, a monstrosity in its own right. It was not anything like the description Sabrina and Misty had given them of the one they had encountered, no. It was something utterly different, vaguely human, with two great wing-like shapes on the back. Each arm ended in swarms of tentacles, and there almost seemed to be a dark, light-less fire spawning from it's back.

Before they even had the time to act, to realize what they were up against, the creature moved, seizing Misty at the waist and dragging her toward him as Ash watched helplessly, a strike at a blinding speed that they had no time to act against. It soon let her drop; she slumped to the ground close to the terrible beast. Ash felt his heart nearly dying in his chest as he watched her fall, praying that she was not dead.

"Oh damn..." The voice was Jeffrey.

"What is it?" Damian's reply was quick, and worried.

"A Valarauko. They're among the most powerful Avaraen! About the same power as that monster Sabrina and the others came up against, I'd say..." The explanation came.

"What is he doing to Misty though?" A quick look at the situation did not help Ash feel better, as Misty seemed half-dead near the creature. Apparently, the Demon had not yet taken interest in them, perhaps because it had a limited sighting range or perhaps because it wanted to defend a specific area.

"I'd say it managed to drain her soul - not completely, but to do most of it. The soul's still attached to her, but that won't last long...if we don't kill that thing soon it'll be too late." Jeffrey's voice was tight.

The question, of course, was how they could kill the monstrosity, Varauko or whatever else Jeffrey had called it. It attacked with blinding speed, striking at them with great power. It was proved that the monster was just too fast when Ash narrowly crossed that line which seemed to be the border of the territory the beast defended. The tentacles came and were nearly around him when he barely managed to withdraw. They would probably have continued on their way, had it not been for the quick reflexes of Kyle, who retaliated by blasting both tentacles as he had destroyed the Avaraen. There seemed to be no way to rescue Misty...No way to save her, nothing to do but to watch her die.

"Ok, here's what we'll do. I'll blast away those tentacles, then we all attack." He said quickly, concentrating as he unleashed his power.

"That won't really work. Not unless we can strike quickly. If you take out all the tentacles, he'll grow up some new ones." The protest came from Jeffrey, who definitely seemed to know a lot about Avaraen. "We have to take it out quickly, without having to run for it."

"Concentrated blast of light?" The question came from Ash's own mouth, as he fought to hold back the tears that were trying to come out.

"That's about the way to do it. We'll need all the electric, fire or whatever pokemon that can perform a light attack with us though." The young man agreed to Jeffrey's plan, knowing it was the only way, as Kyle kept on methodically luring out the tentacles and destroying them. 

Their pokemon appeared, ready to fight as always, and soon they were receiving orders - hyper beam, flamethrower, thunderbolts, to concentrate every possible light they could generate toward the monster. It was not to be those attacks that generated light all around, not the kind they had used at Danea's house. They needed to pull all their firepower together against the enemy, in a concentrated attack.

"It's about done..." Kyle's voice was distant as he continued to methodically unravel the threads of darkness. They waited tensely for the moment to strike...

"Now!" Kyle yelled, and a swarms of lightning, flames and blasts of light lanced forward from Jeffrey and the pokemon, soon joined by an even brighter strike as Ash called upon the powers of Tairen again, something that seemed to grow easier with each passing day. A glowing orb of light appeared in his hand, soon enough a spear was shattering the darkness as it charged toward the monstrosity. The fury of the light seemed to be fueled with anger and worry, rage and frustration. He would not let anyone harm Misty, no matter what.

The creature had obviously not expected the attack, and it obviously was more than enough. The darkness begun to disintegrate, tiny specks floating away and vanishing as the light eroded it in nothingness. Soon enough there was nothing left of the creature.

As soon as the beast was gone, Ash raced toward Misty - only to watch in relief as she slowly rose, looking at them all in a confused way, as if she did not remember what had just happened - which was probably the case. Before she had the time to voice any of the questions, his arms were around her, a tight hold, one that was barely enough to reassure him that Misty was there, that she was not a figment of his imagination.

"What happened..." She seemed half-lost, but certainly did not seem to have completely lost her memory or any such, as she hugged him back, burying herself in his arms, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "Last thing I remember is that Avaraen thing trying to catch me..."

"Well, to put it bluntly, that Avaraen caught you, half-drained your soul, and we managed to kill it and force it to give back your soul just in time. Guess being dark type doesn't protect you from the mind power of those bigger ones." 

"Yeah..." She was shaken now, clinging to him a bit tighter, and he tightened his hold as well. He wanted only to reassure her, to make her feel safe and warm. 

"Guys, look at the ground..." Jeffrey's voice was filled with awe.

Uncomprehending, Ash did as he was told. The ground was strange, small shallow puddle of water and oddly shaped rock formations everywhere, with small fungi scattered across it, small greens masses, like microscopic trees.

Microscopic trees...

No, it couldn't be. There was just no way...and yet, the great rocky formations, with it's highest point nearly at his knees, the fungi covering it all, water trickling down from the roof and slowly flowing toward those puddles...

It just was impossible, no one could have done that, and even if they could, why do it? But yet...yet there was the valley of Viridian, between the Silver Range and the Moon Range, a river flowing down in the middle, a thick mass of fungi in the northern part - Viridian forest, there could not be any doubt. The massive formation with a flat top further to his left had to be the Saffranian plateau.

It was, as impossible as it seemed. A miniature representation of the whole Aysaka, in the ground. The cities were little formations of tiny crystals - Pallet there, north of Cinnabar - Cinnabar, which was still whole on a map that obviously did not change as the world changed.

"Now, to find the marker as to the place of the fight..." Damian whispered, breaking them out of the awe spell and sending them all to search for the marker, whatever it might be. The map had to hold the secret; there was no way around it.

Chapter 24 : Return to Light

"I think I found it!" Damian finally called them, pointing at a point on the ground. Going to join him, Ash had to agree. It could mean nothing else, that much was for sure. All the cities were marked with normal gems - diamonds and the like - but the fact was that there were no other starspire gems on the map. Besides which, even with them too far to trigger a reaction through their elemental attunement, the gem seemed to glow still. It was as if both the point on which it was and the point it represented had, in themselves, a tremendous elemental attunement.

"The Alph mountains." It was a surprise, in a way. Ash certain had not expected the confrontation to take place in Johto, after the way most of their adventures had taken them through Kanto on their way toward finding the nine. It made little sense to have the nine grow up in one place and then hold the fight in another, but then, no one had ever claimed destiny would make sense.

"The Ruins of Alph, to be exact." Damian pointed out, reminding them all that there had once been a great city there.

"Make sense. Pokemopolis, Blackthorn, Alph. The three great empires of Aysaka, and each of them held a large part of the secret." Jeffrey explained, though Ash really did not care about why it made sense. "And we have to be there by next winter, as you guys already know."

"Right." With a quick nod, Ash continued to look at the map, feeling his eyes drawn again to the area were the northern moon mountains - the one that ran from Cerulean in the east to the Serland wall in the west - met the wall itself. Somehow, he could not help but look at that single area of the map, and wonder why he was drawn to it so much.

There was a rumbling sound out of nowhere, a sound Ash had hoped with all his heart not to hear during their travel. He threw himself down as the world shook under them, and over them. Misty did the same nearby, and he tried to move closer to her to at least shelter her a little, noticing with a faint smile that his attempt at protecting her were not very effective - mostly because she attempted to protect him at the same time.

The seismic shock calmed down quickly enough, and the dust settled. They all rose, relieved that none of them had been wounded, noticing in passing that the map had barely even been damaged, though through some luck - or perhaps something else - one of the few pieces of rock to fall on the map had crushed the crystal - definitely not diamond - that marked Cinnabar.

What was definitely not as good was that the falling rocks had somehow been numerous to fall in the entrance of the cave they had used to come in, blocking their way out.

"Guess we'll have to take another way out..." Jeffrey stated the obvious for the first time since he had joined the group, at least for the first time on an important matter. Kyle suddenly seemed very thoughtful, and once again Ash was struck by an odd sense of déja-vu as he watched the young man without his hood, which had fallen off during the earthquake. His black hair fell to shoulder length, lavender eyes just like his own, glasses covering them, though these glasses did not seem to have much effect. Perhaps it was simply the eyes that seemed familiar, but there seemed to be, there was something else, Ash was sure of it.

"I think that would be the best way out." He finally said, pointing at one of the two tunnels. "The other just doesn't feel right to me.

"Doesn't feel right to me either." Sabrina nodded, taking a quick look at it, then returning to her contemplation of the map, surprisingly enough, of the same area even that had drawn Ash's eyes. 

Looking at it closely again, he could almost feel something beyond sight, as if a crystal was meant to be there, but remained unseen despite his best effort, a city he had never heard of hidden there beyond time. A brief look at Sabrina, a rapid nod, she felt the same thing. There was something there that only the two of them seemed to perceive, and none other. But what it was, or why it was there, that remained beyond him. 

There would be time later to solve that mystery, hopefully, once they were done with leaving the cave. In the meantime it would have to remain as just that, a mystery, one not to be understood yet.

Leaving the cave was the next thing to do, was what they would now do. There was no sense in staying there after finding what they had been seeking, especially not since staying in such a wide area would leave them completely open to attacks. Considering they had just narrowly avoided disaster in a battle because they had not been careful enough, it was an important factor.

They swiftly walked out the other entrance, the one that Kyle had first pointed out to them. It was a slightly larger tunnel than the one they had walked in at first, with not so many narrow passages, though there still were a few. Once or twice the sound nearby made Ash think there might be more Tyranitar waiting for them on the way out, but those fears never proved true, and they made their way further in what might best be described as relative peace.

The knowledge that they had accomplished mostly everything they had to do - or so Damian told them, despite the fact that one of their number was still missing - and that there were yet months more left until the day of the confrontation, the challenge, however they called it, was comforting. There was a general feeling of contentment from them all, except of course from Elayne who seemed to want each day to slow down, who never seemed to want for tomorrow to come. It was, of course, easily understandable. She would loose much when the time of battle would come - too much. Her heart, perhaps, her soul, even, everything she held dearest at least.

There were a number of strange and beautiful places on their way out, caverns of crystal, not only with veins of gems in the walls, but with walls of the purest crystal, underground rivers in which the water had a strange, golden tint. There were caverns in which every echo lingered for days, and caverns in which the sound of their voice would be hushed, even if they tried to yell. Other caverns were not so wonderful, threatening to crush them at the slightest loud noise, unstable pockets in the rock of the mountains. They traveled quickly through those, quickly and carefully, avoiding noise as best as they could.

Still, it was a mostly peaceful journey, and for once there was not much fighting between the members of the group - perhaps because Ash had again made it clear that he would not hesitate to freeze any fight - in the most basic sense of the term. Tanya and Damian were not on the verge of becoming fast friends, neither were Kyle and Jeffrey - both wary of each other - but at least they did not poison their days with endless squabbles.

There were also pokemon to be seen on the way, though they were rare. Here and there Ash caught a glimpse of the flames-lit silver fur of a wolspire vanishing away, and from time to time strange ghostly shapes would appear, shapes without owners. They crossed a strange nest of pokemon similar to dratini, once, pokemon none of them had seen before, pokemon that neither Jeffrey nor the pokedex could identify. Yet, somehow, Ash could not convince himself to try and capture at least one of those. He simply felt that he would be wasting his time capturing one of those - that it was not part of his role to bring them to the day, to the surface of the world.

More strange pokemon, wolspires-like in shape, but with strange wings on their backs, and without the flames, a look of wisdom in their golden eyes. Lions shapes with beaks and wings, and strangely large bug-like creatures, their segmented bodies as long as the leg of a human. Strange birds, their wings seemingly made of water, rested in the lakes and rivers of the caves. Snakes were there too, not Arboks or Ekans, but rather strange golden snakes, with wings no their backs, that would take flight the moment one of the human would come too close. Strange persians-like creatures, their body brown-red instead of creamy, with flames on their tails much like any Charmander, and with great golden wings coming out of their body. Tiny pokemon, barely the size of a pidgey, but with the shape of a charizard, though deprived of their tail feather, would come to steal from their things at night, sneaking past them. They would not steal much over the course of each week, not even enough to represent a meal's worth of food for any of them, so Ash usually let them take a little.

Spots of light appeared randomly in the cave, perhaps strange creatures lying in wait, but they would vanish before any of them had the chance to check them out. There were many wonders in the new caves, many things they had never seen.

As they made their ways, Ash grew even more watchful of his mysterious friend Kyle. There was something so oddly familiar about the way the two of them were extremely similar, with only a few differences, most of them minor except Kyle's powers...and his pokemon, the few time Ash had seen them, had exhibited powers far beyond those of other pokemon of their species.

Puzzling, definitely. It seemed as if he was grasping for a memory that no longer existed, vanished forever. A name seemed to haunt him, one he could barely remember, one that still nagged at his brain. Mew. No, not Mew. Something similar, but different. Mew was one of the eight high pokemon. It was not Mew, another name, one simple to remember, a difference that was not even one....

"You're wondering about Kyle?" Damian's voice broke off his train of thought suddenly.

"Yeah. And another thing...I remember vaguely...a name I heard once but I can't remember...it had something to do with Mew, but..." Besides him, he could see Damian had tensed at the last comment. The young man knew something, that much was no longer a possibility. "I'm sure it has to do with it. It had to do with...I don't know...I remember another pikachu, another Meowth...it's so vague...only hints of it that might have remained, as if the rest of my memory had been wiped out of my mind..." 

"The name you're looking for might be Mewtwo." Damian finally said. "Ring any bell?"

"I definitely heard it before..." Imaged came again, a powerful pokemon with tremendous psychic powers, Mew facing it...Psychic powers that seemed so hauntingly familiar..."I don't remember where...or why...or who talked about it..."

"Mewtwo was an enhanced clone of Mew, with increased powers. My father had him created in accordance to the prophecies. And in accordance with the prophecies, he treated Mewtwo harshly, betrayed him." Damian's face also betrayed many things, distaste for actions done simply "because they must happen" or perhaps of people trying to force destiny in happening. "Mewtwo rebelled and nearly destroyed the old Rocket headquarters. We lost a few good agents that day. He swore to destroy mankind and went off, presumably to New Island, but never appeared again."

"New Island..." The last mention had definitely struck something familiar, ringing a bell in the depths of Ash's mind. "I seem to remember...there was a psychic pokemon...he was making clones...Mewtwo, I think...that other pikachu and that other Meowth...they were clones..."

"I thought so too, from a few clues. I'll give you a few other details - there is only one other being - outside the gods- ever to display as much control over the world around as Mewtwo - though I know at least a few other who could match them for sheer power. Want to take a guess at the name?" It wasn't even a question, the answer was too obvious.

"Kyle Stery." 

"Exactly." Damian nodded. "I suppose it wouldn't be worth much if I told you that a secondary goal of the Mewtwo project - secondary for my father, the main goal for the lead scientist - was to make a clone of his daughter who had died in a car crash. Scientist reported that somehow, there seemed to be a closeness between the spirits of the two clones - to the point that Mewtwo went berserk when the girl died. Now guess what?"

"Aimée Ryder looks like her?"

"Looks a lot like I imagine she would have looked at sixteen or so from the pics I've seen, yeah."

"Geez, why do I have a very uneasy feeling that a DNA check comparing mine's and Kyle's wouldn't yield a whole lot in the way of differences?"

"Probably because if it wasn't for his glasses and you two having slightly different hairstyles, you could see each other in the mirror. Or use each other for mirrors." Damian's reply was quick and sent a chill down Ash' spine.

"If you want some advice, maybe you'd better think of him as your long-lost twin brother. Far better than thinking of him as your clone."

"Even then, means I'm not unique anymore...he could...I don't know...it's just...feels weird to know he's just like me, except with an extra something..."

"He doesn't have a soul gift...he might be more intelligent, but I'd say that with Tairen backing you, you're wiser than he can ever hope to be, and you know a lot more than he does about the world and what happened in the past. As far as power go I'll remind you he couldn't take out that Avaraen back in the cave. You did wipe it out." Damian's eyes grew serious.

"With some help." Ash protested, though he knew that much was false. The help had been good, true, but hardly needful - his own strike would have been very sufficient, he was sure of it.

"I'm pretty sure you didn't need the help. That beam of yours was very impressive in its own right. It would have done the trick." His friend agreed with the unspoken thought.

"Anyway he did wipe out all those at the ruins. I couldn't have pulled that off." A rapid protest.

"No. His powers comes from the fact that he seems to be able to launch a hundred attack at once or so. But those attacks can't combine - and if they aren't strong enough, he's out of luck. It takes a lot more for someone not to be overpowered by your attacks." It made sense, and it also forced Ash to admit once and for all that neither he nor Kyle was stronger in anyway - as the old saying went, they were equal but different. 

"I guess you're right." With a slight nod, Ash rose again. It was time to make their way out of the cave, once and for all.

Despite resolve to get out quickly, it actually took them some more time, not only a little, but weeks. As they finally felt the sun on their skin again, or rather, finally saw it in the distance again, it was nearing the end of the third month in the cave. July had made way for August, August for September and September to October, the early days of the tenth month of the calendar. There were slightly over two months left before the final day of their quest. And yet, they had done almost everything, which meant they could - to put it in a less than dignified way - enjoy themselves, and have fun. 

They emerged from the cave to face a blazing sun, small sparks of light descending from the heaven to touch the golden and crimson leaves of the trees. They were inside a deep crater, a crater with a small wood, and a lake. In the middle of the lake, an island, strangely enough seemingly formed by a crashing airplane of some sort. 

The voice came out of nowhere, ringing through their mind, vaguely touching the edges of Ash's memory. It was a voice, so to speak, he had heard before. A voice so familiar...too familiar...

"_Why have you brought them here Kyle?_"

Chapter 25 : Memories Awakening

Whirling, trying to face the source of the mysterious voice, unable to pinpoint it as it did not come from any specific location but rather the depths of his mind, Ash found himself face to face with one of the strangest creatures he had ever seen. 

Purple eyes flaring with power, a snowy white body surrounded in a strange blue glow, a blue flame that wreathed around the pokemon, a purple tail coming out of the body, surrounded in the same eerie light. There were similitude between that pokemon and an alakazam, definitely, in shape at least.

"There were no other choices master. Of the two tunnel we could take away from the cave we were in, one led to the deepest bowels of the earth, the other led here."

"_I see. I suppose you did what you had to, then._" The being almost seemed to smile, or at least to have a strangely joyful look on his face. "_Aimée, it's good to have you back little one._"

"Thank you master." The girl smiled. "I'm glad to be back, too."

"Mewtwo." The voice was Damian's, the suspicions it confirmed were Ash's.

"_I see you know of me. How so?_" 

"I am Giovanni's son." The answer was simple, quick. It was also, from what Damian had told him the day before, a dangerous gamble, especially with the amount of power Mewtwo possessed. Ash winced, praying he would not have to experience the power first hand.

"_Ah, yes. Of course, you would know about me._" Blue fire flared for a brief moment as the creature seemingly remembered its days in the hands of Team Rocket. "_Don't worry. It seems I underestimated your father...I know why he did it, now...I don't like it being done, but it was needed. I guess Without him, Kyle and Aimée would never have been around, and they both had important stuff that needed to be done. Not to mention that without me, you'd be short one neverborn."_

There was silence, both mental and physical, for a while, only broken by the chirping of birds down in the crater. Silence, and a sense of waiting.

"Did we ever meet?" Ash broke the noiselessness suddenly. "I seem to remember it, but it's so sketchy, only vague memories..." he shook his head.

"_So you remember._" The voice of the psychic pokemon was sad. "_I had hoped you would have forgotten completely. But it would be better for you to remember all of it than only parts, I suppose..._" A shake of the head completed the words of the pokemon as blue fire enveloped both him and Ash.

Memories flowed back in Ash's mind, covered for too long, forgotten somehow in the flow of time. The dragonite, coming to bring then an invitation as they stood upon that cliff. The trip to the harbor, and the storm raging. The harbor master and police officer, telling them about how they would not allow anyone to leave - about how it was too risky.

Other memories, too, of how all the invited trainers had somehow decided to fight their way through the storm to the island, whether by using their swimming pokemon as ships, or by flying on the back of Fearow or Pidgeot. How Brock, Misty and Ash himself had found a ship manned by so-called Vikings - Team Rocket, of course - to carry them.

How the ship had been destroyed, tossed like a toy in the hands of a giant on the furious sea, how squirtle and Misty's water pokemon had been the only thing between them and death. How they had fought to make their way to the surface, how they had finally, somehow, managed to make their way to the island where they had been challenged.

More memories, the strange hooded figure who had welcomed them, taking them to a grand hall, where many pokemon had been waiting. The trainers talking about their pokemon, waiting for the mysterious so-called pokemon master who had challenged them to come.

The same mysterious trainer, Mewtwo, appearing before them, sending out his clones of Charizard, Venusaur and Blastoise against the real ones, fighting for all they were worth. The clones had been much stronger than the original - just like Kyle's pokemon had been much stronger than any other pokemon of the same kind.

Upon their defeat, Mewtwo sending waves of strange dark pokeball as their pokemon, capturing everything, even pokemon already within their pokeball, all the while telling them of his plan to end the world and being a new one. How he had fought alongside pikachu, knocking down swarms of pokeball in an attempt to protect the little mouse, only for it to be caught at the last moment. How he had followed in the strange pit to the cloning chamber, and rescued the real pokemon...

The memories kept coming back, flashing through his mind endlessly, telling him a part of his history that he had forgotten, a part that perhaps he would have done better not to remember. More images came, swarming over his mind.

How the pokemon, all their special powers disabled, had faced each others in battle, brothers fighting against each other in a bitter, terrible war. How all of them had agreed that it was the concept of pokemon battle taken too far, much too far.

How Mew had appeared, fighting her clone as below the clones battled, terrible blasts of energy that weakened already drained pokemon, threatening to kill them all, to end the fight. How he had been aghast, watching the terrible devastation as the bolts of energy collided. How he had thrown himself between the two attack, a final, perhaps futile as far as he could tell attempt to stop the fight.

And how he had died, struck by the full power of both blasts. There was no memory of the brief instants in which his consciousness had slipped out of him, only that it had happened, only for instants, or what seemed like instants to any extent.

"It's true." A whisper barely audible out of his lips as he remembered certain parts of the prophecies that had not made much sense to him, not back then. Parts that now were perfectly clear.

"_I am sorry._" The voice was Mewtwo, and Ash could be sure only him could hear it. He wanted vaguely to say that sorry didn't cut it, that it was just not enough to account for taking a life...

But how could he say that? He was, after all, alive, and Mewtwo had had reasons for his madness. Not to mention that of course, Ash had made the choice of throwing himself in the way of the incoming bolts of energy, which had never been aimed at him. 

"It's all right." A soft whisper, not meant to be heard by all. Misty in particular did not need to hear of the events, not now. It would not affect her life not to hear of them, but if she was told, it would probably create useless conflicts.

"_Thank you._"There definitely was relief in the new mental whisper, one he again was sure only he could hear. "_For your forgiveness, for stopping me...and for teaching me a lot, too, about life._" The voice finished. Ash nodded with a slight smile, wondering what the others were doing as he realized he could hear them talking, though it sounded as if they were far away.

They were, of course, talking with Aimée and Kyle, he realized as he looked for them. And they had walked away slightly, perhaps drawn off by the two they wanted to question now, which explained why their voices were not as strong. Misty was the only one who had stayed close, unsurprisingly, keeping worried eyes on him.

"Are you all right Ash?" She moved closer, helping him rise from the sitting position he had taken as the memories had started sweeping over him. "I mean...what did he does?" She glared suspiciously at Mewtwo.

"Nothing dear. Nothing." His reply was quick as he wrapped his arms tightly around her, letting her head fall on his shoulder, softly caressing her head. "I love you." He added in a soft whisper, meant for no one to hear. He could feel the amused eyes of Mewtwo on him, but that much was something he did not care really about. He seemed to learn even more every day how close he and Misty had come from never being openly in love with each other, and all he wanted now was to hold her, to remember that the possibility of them not coming together had been averted.

They joined the others quickly, as there was much planning yet to do, not planning of how best to fulfill the prophecies, but of how best to spend the time left until the conversation

"I think we need to train and all...I mean, sure we're good, but we need to make sure we are a match for that guy..." Sabrina was first to speak, unsurprisingly she was also the first to consider the duty aspect, and not very interested in the fun aspect. It was a facade, Ash knew, but one behind which she hide to protect herself more than anything.

"That should have been god, not guy." Tanya gave Sabrina an amused smile, seemed about to say more, but a glare of the older psychic silenced her.

"Anyone want to know what their cone of ice cream feels like?" The question, asked on a conversational tone, was certainly enough to put a damper on the fighting, asked by someone they had seen turning offenders in ice cubes on regular occasions.

"I think we should try to learn more about the earlier fights...I'm sure there are some books with clues in them..." No need to hear the voice, the words were enough to know Jeffrey had just added in his two cents. "If we can find out more about how things went in the past...maybe we can make sure they go well now..."

"He's right..." The reluctant voice was James, surprisingly. Ash would have seen him taking the side of those who undoubtedly would want to rest and relax now, rather he was in favor or studying.

"I don't know...last few months were pretty hectic and tiring...we should find some place and rest for a while. You know, just relax and enjoy life. Especially if there's the chance some of us won't enjoy it anymore after that fight." Jessie disagreed with her partner. 

"I hate it but I kind of agree with her. We need to relax, enjoy life...we'll kick ass when it's time to kick ass, now it's time to enjoy life." Ash sighed at his cousin's choice of words. She was perhaps right, but she could have been slightly less blunt about it.

"No reason why we can't do it all at once. Those who want to enjoy life can enjoy life, those who want to read can read, and those who want to train can train. We just have to find some good place to do all that..." Elayne's answer was obvious, the idea had already started to enter Ash's mind before she had even began talking.

"She's right." He nodded. "Indigo would be my pick for that. We know we're welcome there, and with the league there we'd have pretty much everything we need."

They argued for a short while, some of them protesting that their own cities, or another place, would be the best choice - but none of them offered all the benefits that there were to staying in Indigo, far from it. Indigo offered a tranquil place, yet one in which they could certainly manage to organize some sort of party. There were great libraries and ancient museum, all the knowledge they would need to study, and they could train mostly everywhere they wanted.

In addition, Lance certainly wouldn't object to lending them an helicopter or two to make their way to the Alph mountains for the final confrontation of their prophesied quest. No disadvantage, and so many advantages. Going to spend the next few weeks in Indigo would definitely be for the best.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Damian nodded. "Indigo would probably be the best place for us to go now, and from there to do what each of us wants..."

Agreement was soon reached, the choice being simply obvious. Why go anywhere else, after all, when Indigo was the best place?

They slept for the night in the crater, wondering slightly about their current location, but knowing still that on the surface, especially flying, they could reach Indigo long before the time of the meeting would come. Yet somehow, they all agreed to walk for a way at first. 

It was a surprise to find out that Kyle would be leaving his home again, once more traveling with them. Damian seemed most surprised of them all by the turn of events, he had apparently not anticipated such a choice. His eyes betrayed how the news had stunned him.

Sadly, Aimée would not come, it appeared from her cryptic words that there was another task she had to deal with, something of great import in her life, while she was of no import to their own task. Though that was true, she still was a friend, her absence in their group would not go unnoticed.

They left the crater walking, all of them not feeling very much like flying, and wanting to take the time to enjoy the outside world for a day or two after the long three months spent in the darkness. 

They walked on what seemed to be an eastward course after leaving the crater by means of flying for a short time, guessing from what they could remember of their long trek that the crater was somewhere in Johto. They had not flown high enough to confirm their location, none of the landmarks visible from the height they had reached seeming very reminiscent of anything they knew.

Walking on for a while, they stopped finally as the sun went down, far too early for them, seeing as they had entered the darkness as the day lasted its longest, to emerge at a time past the equinox, a time were nights already outlasted days. 

The night was quiet. Their guard down, they kept no watch, enjoying the feeling of having completed all their tasks. As the star-filled sky stood overhead, they went to sleep. Like most other nights since their long journey had started, James and Jessie slept side by side, holding each other for increased warmth in the chill air of early October. As well, Damian and Elayne were side by side, as were Ash and Misty. There was a feeling of indescribable contentment in having the one he loved the most so close, a feeling of soothing peace, of fulfillment.

There were no sound, no noise. Nothing foretold the arrival of the group of silent warriors in the camp, armed. There was no time to fight, to resist. The assault was too swift, too well-planned and well executed. Within moments ropes held them defenseless, all too soon they were carried off without even knowing who their attackers were, or what they wanted.


	6. Fates

Part 6: Colliding Fates  
  
Chapter 26 : Mark of the Nether  
  
A soft thud, a slight shudder, the great engine sound slowly shutting down to nothing. In the darkness of the window-less passenger cabin of the helicopter, Ash had lost track of time after waking up. Ropes held him still, digging cruelly in his flesh, while his best attempts at focusing his mind to unleash the power of Tairan only earned him a headache.  
  
His companions seemed in no better position, sadly. Their eyes were foggy, betraying the inability to concentrate on anything such as unleashing powers. Even Kyle seemed powerless to act, despite all the power he wielded. Despite the gravity of the situation, somehow the knowledge that his...his twin, his clone...could not do any better than Ash himself was a bit comforting. Perhaps they were more equal that he thought, perhaps even Damian was right.  
  
The door opened, a man approached. He wore strange clothes, similar to those of the nobles of ancient times, the time of empires such as Blackthorn before the warriors from Serland had taken over Aysaka. The clothes were marked with strange signs, signs that got Damian's eyes to narrow as soon as the man came in sight.  
  
"Servant of Rethen." It was barely audible, just loud enough for Ash himself, who sat at the side of Damian, to hear. The words made sense, not through the knowledge that Ash himself possessed, that he had obtained on his own, but through the knowledge that had become his when the memories of Tairan had met his.  
  
"Welcome all." The man smiled at them, a surprisingly genuine smile. Had it been a triumphant smile, or a knowing smile, or any such, it would have been understandable, but the fatherly, welcoming smile he gave them...  
  
It simply made no sense for an enemy serving the insane God to be polite or happy to see them, servants of another god as they were - not unless it was an happiness born of triumph, which his was not.  
  
"I am glad to meet you all at last." A smile, a hand offered. Ash took it reluctantly, somehow fearing a trap, there seemed to be none. "Ash, the child of the dragon. I've heard much about you - you all - and I have long waited to meet you."  
  
"Ah..." The sound was uncompromising, expressing at most a vague interest.  
  
"Yes, I even know how you saw Ho-Oh appear once, something I don't think many alive can claim. It is the sign of a great destiny, one perhaps even greater than all you accomplished and know you will have to accomplish. Maybe it is not, either. Your destiny has been great already." He seemed thoughtful as he stood silent for a moment.  
  
"What do you want?" the voice was Damian's.  
  
"What do I want? Why, to make sure you are in the right place, at the right time for the confrontation. I do not know of your plans now that you had gathered everything, but there are many out there who would want you to be kept from reaching the place of the meeting. On the other hand, I had you brought here, right next to it, in the Alph mountains. That is all that I want." A smile again, this time slightly cunning, betraying that there was more behind, perhaps the cause for him to want that.  
  
"And your master wants the confrontation to take place?" Damian charged in the open breach.  
  
"Yes, and I don't know why. I asked, and for the first time in years, he refused to tell me. But as he tells me that he still works toward the same end he always wanted to accomplish, I will still follow. No matter the price."  
  
"You want the world to be destroyed that much?" The question came from Sabrina, not Damian, it was asked with a surprised tone.  
  
There was silence, a long silence. No one spoke, the man seemed to think.  
  
"Yes, I do." He finally answered.  
  
"Why?" Ash breathed in stunned disbelief.  
  
"Why? Why indeed. That's the whole question, isn't it?" sadness filled his voice.  
  
"Yes, I'd say it is." A quick nod accompanying his words, Ash looked at the man who stood staring at the empty sky.  
  
"Look at mankind around us. Look at what we did to the world." He was silent for a moment, watching them from the corner of his eyes. "Look at the species that was given a world and managed to ruin it in a few thousand years."  
  
There were no answers to be given, not yet, as his explanation was barely begun.  
  
"Why would I want to destroy the world? I don't want to destroy the world." His voice was now definitely sad, weary too. The voice of someone who had fought a long battle, who knew he had lost.  
  
"What?" Damian seemed half-outraged and half-surprised by the comment.  
  
"Even if I wanted to destroy the world, I couldn't." He went on, ignoring the interruption. "Mankind already took care of that. What's left is a shadow, a hulk without substance. I don't want to destroy the world. I want to avenge it - to bring an end to those who killed it."  
  
"But the world could be rebuilt..." A feeble protest, Ash knew. It wouldn't happen, not with the way mankind was now. It would take too much to shake them out of their comfortable lives before it was too late.  
  
"You already know that's false. It would take will to rebuild, people would have to want for the world to be born again. But that won't happen. They are too busy thinking of their wallet to think about their world. A mankind with the like of Saren in it, who let the army shoot missiles at civilians while everyone watches, a mankind where chiefs of state let go of all environmental decency so that their friends can line their pockets with gold? You want to make me believe they'll rebuild the world? As long as money rules mankind, there is no hope for the world."  
  
There was no way but to agree with the last statement. As sad as it was, a mankind ruled by money, who delighted only in having more visible wealth than the neighbors, such a mankind would never rebuild the world it had unwittingly ruined.  
  
"So you want to destroy mankind because mankind destroyed the world?" Sabrina asked the next question.  
  
"Why not? Most countries kill their murderers, I only destroy destroyers. Or kill those who murdered the world. Depend how you chose to put it."  
  
With a sigh, Ash watched away. He wanted desperately to believe that mankind could still change things, could still turn the tide...but looking at everything across the world...war and pollution, selfishness...There were a few who managed to do otherwise, who wanted to help...but too few. Too few who saw something beyond their own comfort.  
  
"How can you have hope in a world that let children die while they are busy talking about abstract power? That let children go to war, or that let them die because of pollution disasters? Worse, that doesn't even care they died except for letting their attorneys make sure there will be no trouble by bribing the government. A world like that...it's a world that doesn't exist anymore. A world that's dead already. Think about it, and then maybe you'll see why I'm trying to end it all."  
  
Ash shuddered again as the man led them to a door. He was right, yet not...yet he was. The inner turmoil was impossible to master, as the side of him that wanted to hope fought a desperate losing battle against the side that wanted to give up. The side that knew that if the dark plans of that man didn't suceed, it would only gain the world fifty years, perhaps a century. Not enough, far from enough.  
  
The door closed behind them, to Ash the sound was like the hammer of the Judge falling to announce that the sentence had been delivered. The world would die, one way or the other. It was too late to do anything about it.  
  
"He's mad." Elayne stated as soon as the door closed.  
  
"No. He's right, in his way. I wouldn't agree with some of his premise...but as for mankind already having killed the world, care to challenge that claim?" Jeffrey thrust the answer viciously, Ash nodding as he said so.  
  
"Not all of mankind is bad."  
  
"No, but too much of it already." Sabrina spoke from the window, where she was looking at the world.  
  
"Far too much." Ash supported her.  
  
"I hate to admit it Elayne, but they're right. It would take something fairly drastic to remind everyone out there that we aren't the only one in this world, and that we shouldn't be destroying it." Misty was next to add to the discussion.  
  
"Yeah, but..." She shook her head. "I just know there has to be a way still. There has to."  
  
"I hope there is..."  
  
Even as the words left his mouth, Ash sighed, knowing that hope was already dying. There would be no way to wake up mankind in time. No way, and the world would die.  
  
"Am I the only one who noticed we might want to think up an escape plan?" Jessie interrupted the line of thought.  
  
"Why?" Damian replied slowly. "We're right at the place of the meeting...why go away?"  
  
"Weren't we supposed to go to, I don't know, Indigo?" Misty raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Only because it would have the books, the training space and everything else we wanted...we have pretty much that here, you'll notice."  
  
Ash looked around, noticing their surroundings for the first time. Far from the drab prison cell he had imagined, the room looked far more like a suite in a five-star hotel than anything else. A great carved wooden table stood in the middle, chairs around it. A tall chandelier hung above it, though there were no candles in it, rather small light bulbs duplicating the effect. Great couches were in a room besides it, one with great glass windows that revealed the stunning scenery of the Alph mountains outside. On another side, what seemed to be a training room for them all. And various doors, which led doubtlessly to bedroom.  
  
There were quite a few bookcases scattered across the suite, filled with modern novels and ancient documents, a few books of comics, some information-filled tomes. The main room, the one with a couch, held a great television screen, one of those seen only in the homes of the richest. Video games, a computer, there didn't seem to be anything lacking in the room. Except one thing.  
  
"You know, if there was some food around here it would be great." James voice was slightly sarcastic. "It makes no..."  
  
He was cut short as the door opened again, leaving room for a man pushing in a tray filled with food.  
  
"Master Kiljaeden ordered that you would be brought some food. If there is need of something else, please call for us." He pointed to a button, by the door. Ash whistled inwardly, impressed by the treatment they were given, not what one would expect to be done for prisoners, but what one would expect to be done for royalty.  
  
The man withdrew, closing - and locking, a sign they were still not trusted to stay in place - the door behind him. The tray remained there for a moment more before Ash went to it, looking at the food there, in more than sufficient quantity for them all - and as far as he knew, the favorites meals of each of them.  
  
"He really knows about us, doesn't he?" Misty noticed as she picked her plate.  
  
"He definitely does. Strange." Sabrina nodded quickly.  
  
"Not that strange. Rethen isn't above cheating when it comes to influencing the world, as far as I can guess. He probably told his servants about who we were - those among his servants he trusted anyway."  
  
They sat at the table, and ate slowly, all of them thoughtful about the strange twists of events, or about the words of their captor.  
  
"Well, they at least have a certain sense of style when it comes to how they treat the people they kidnap." Damian smiled as he ate.  
  
"Better than some others I could name, uh?" Ash grinned as he let out the teasing comment at the two who had once been his nemesis.  
  
"Hey!" Jessie protested, though a small smile was drawn on her lips. James was silent, smiling too, but a sad smile.  
  
"Yup. They do things...how was it again?" Misty had a slight smile on her face, and Ash wondered what she was up to. "Ah, yes. They do things the proper way."  
  
James was stunned for a moment, then started laughing, his laughter joining with Jessie as they all recalled their encounter with James' family years ago. The thought of Jessibelle seemed a far away memory of an innocent youth now, before the weight of the world had settled on their shoulders. The weight of prophecies.  
  
"I think we should get some sleep..." Misty suddenly said, pointing out at the fiery red ball slowly descending behind the horizon, coloring the sky in gold, in red, in pink, in purples, in oranges. The fiery display stood there as they watched it.  
  
"Yeah, we should..." Ash wrapped his arm tightly around her shoulders, holding her close. Around him, he noticed his friends doing the same, moving closer to their loved ones to watch the sunset.  
  
"They're really nice. There are enough bedrooms for all of us." Tanya pointed out. "Though somehow I think some of these will remain empty." She added with a grin.  
  
"You bet." Elayne smiled, holding Damian closer as Ash turned to look inquiringly at Misty. They had slept close to each other many time during their adventures, but there was a certain sense of taking a new step in sharing a bed...something beyond what they had done. Misty did not hesitate before nodding with a smile, a smile he returned.  
  
It came as no surprise that a third room, which would have been Jessie's - or James' - remained empty that night, though Ash wasn't really paying attention to what the others were doing. As darkness filled the world again, he went to the room he and Misty had chosen as theirs, the young woman stepping in just before he did. As they closed the door, she looked at him thoughtfully, a slight rosy blush appearing on her cheeks.  
  
"Well...feels odd uh?" She finaly said. "I mean...you know what I'm trying to say don't you?" She finally asked and he smiled, nodding.  
  
"Yeah...being in the same bed...I don't know...it feels like we were from friends a short time ago and now..."  
  
"Short time? We've been in love for about two years Ash. Well, more than that, but we've been together for that long."  
  
"True..." He smiled back, wondering where the time had gone. It seemed only like yesterday that they had met again in that hospital room in Olivine...It seemed as if not even a week had passed since the fire at Sprout Tower, and Misty's apparent death.  
  
"And...well...I'm...I'm starting to think we're ready to...take the next step..." She blushed again as the hesitant words left her lips.  
  
"Well..." He hesitated, surprised by the turn of events. But then, considering that they were already going to sleep in the same bed, the idea of going one step further was not exactly a surprising one. And after two years together, there was no argument that their relationship was ready for the step.  
  
"I mean...if you want to...I'm ready...there's no hurry but I'm ready." She added, blushing again.  
  
"Well...if you're sure you want us to...." He finally answered. She hesitated for a moment.  
  
"I'm sure. If you're ready..." she finally answered.  
  
"In that case..." He kissed her, a full, passionate kiss, as they slowly walked down the path they had been heading for, ever since that day, two years ago.  
  
As morning came the next day, it found them sleeping side by side, covered only by a thin blanket, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.  
  
Chapter 27 : The Fourth Sign  
  
Time passed by slowly, and despite the fact that they were prisoners, kidnapped, it was still a time of peace and somehow, happiness, though happiness tainted by the dark whispers of apprehension as December came closer, and with it the time of the meeting.  
  
But to Melody, there were other problems, problems of a magnitude much greater. The other knew their role, they had to fight the prince of night, defeat or be defeated. But what was her role in the mysterious test? Why would a summoner be needed? A part of her mind told her to calm down, that things would become clear in time...  
  
But the rest of her wanted nothing of it, too busy trying to imagine what part she could possibly play, what her weapon could ever be. Damian would give no answer when she managed to talk to him, on these too rare occasion when he was not busily talking with one of the other about something, or away with Elayne in one of the other rooms.  
  
She sat down, trying to relax, let go of the tension that had inhabited her ever since the rape attempt in the Silver Mountains. She knew it was futile, that she would never be able to be as relaxed, as innocent again, that she should at least be grateful that she had recovered so much from the state of panic she had been in immediately after.  
  
She sighed, feeling dreadfully out of place in the group, a group that seemingly was able to weather down every event that came by, death, destruction, war....And there she was, unable to face what had happened to her - terrible, yes, but they had all faced events of such a magnitude, the Shadow ordeal for Misty, the death of his best friend and his mother for Ash, the rape attempt on Sabrina, the news of Damian's unavoidable doom for Elayne....  
  
Gazing out of the window, she watched the birds flying, wishing for a brief moment she could be one of them...then turning back and ignoring them. She could not, would not fall to despair, not now. She would have her part to play, and somehow would play it. Somehow.  
  
She wished she could have at least a solid sign she was the one they had been looking for, that there was no mistake on the summoner, perhaps a weapon of some sort, or else a cloak like they all had. Instead, all she carried on her were things she had had before even joining them. The flute she had brought with her from Shamuti rested in her backpack, where she picked it up. Perhaps playing it would have some kind of soothing effect.  
  
The first note seemed to carry her spirit off, pushing away the worries and the despair, letting her breath freely again as the crystal-clear sound filled the air. A warm feeling of peace and contenment radiated in her as she threw herself in the music, pouring all her worries in the flute and letting them flow away. She had not touched the little instrument in quite a while, now it appeared as an obvious mistake - but the mistake was soon forgotten in the purity of the sound.  
  
Finally, she put the flute down on the ground with a relieved sigh. She felt much better, that much was for sure, and somehow she knew that no matter what, she would do what she had to. As long as she could let out the clear notes of her music to sooth her mind, there would be no worries.  
  
"You play well." The soft voice came from the doorway, a voice she knew.  
  
"Thank you Ash. Though you already heard me playing." She smiled, though he would not see it as she was looking away.  
  
"I was a bit too busy saving the world last time I heard you playing." The wry smile was obvious in the tone of voice. "You could have played it atrociously and I wouldn't have noticed."  
  
"Thanks." Sarcasm and amusement mixed in her reply. "True though, we were a bit too busy last time to make it a full-fledged concert."  
  
"Oh, I don't know. With all those pokemon you'd have had record attendance." He laughed.  
  
"True." She smiled. "Though I wouldn't have wanted to fail there...I mean, what do you think pokemon would do to someone they want to stop singing?"  
  
"Point taken." Turning to look at him, she could see the grin on his face. "Though considering the only other singer they can even try to listen to is Jigglypuff, you'd have had a hard time not beating her."  
  
They continued to talk, remembering the last time they had teamed up, in face of the cataclysmic events that had shaken the whole world.  
  
___________________________  
  
Thunder.  
  
Thunder, and flames.  
  
Thunder, flames, and ice.  
  
The swirling elements gathered, flew from each other, darkness meeting light, grass meeting water, thunder, flames and ice meeting in a chaotic rage of the elements.  
  
Red eyes scanned the group assembled, the six great pokemon standing there waiting. Long tail flowing behind her, Suicune seemed at peace with the world, but to any, it was obvious great turmoil was roaring inside her. Behind her, Moltres was raging, unleashing her flames in frustration.. Energy cracking around him, Zapdos seemed to wait only for an occasion to fight. Both Mew and Lugia, the two opposite, light and darkness, seemed lost in deep contemplation, meditation. Celebi was equally peaceful, eyes lost as they watched from afar the world below, and what beauty was left in it.  
  
"What happened?" His voice reaching out to them all, Articuno waited for an answer.  
  
"What happened? A human dared to strike at one of the firsts, to unleash Avaraen against us even." Moltres' voice was dark, the voice of someone eager for revenge.  
  
"Jormungand?" The question came from Celebi. Apparenly, Aritcuno was not the only one unaware of the recent events.  
  
"Yes. He defeated them, but was left weakened - terribly so. He may never recover fully. Even if he does, it will be a long recovery." Suicune's voice was even, but it was not enough to cover the rage boiling inside her.  
  
"The more important matter is, who will lend his strength to the dragon fang now?" the question came from Zapdos.  
  
"Me." The voice came from behind them, and Articuno turned to see a golden point of light coming closer to the great spire close to the summit of Mount Silver.  
  
"Tiamat." He acknowledged softly as Jormungand's daughter appeared, her enormous size becoming obvious as she came closer.  
  
"Lord Articuno." She acknolwedged back.  
  
"You think you have the strength to do so?" The question came from Suicune, a slow, measured tone.  
  
"If I do not, no one do."  
  
"True." With a pensive nod, Articuno contemplated the situation. They all had their own children scattered across the world, perhaps not their direct heirs most of the time, but the lines of the legendary pokemon were far from extinct.  
  
"I still think your father should not have dabbled with parenthood." Mew stated.  
  
"It's a bit late to think about that. Most of us have our descendant somewhere in the world, starting with the lines of the oracles. Some of them are even quite close to us. The oracle of heaven is only the great- grandson of Jormungand - and the power of the former oracle now fills the blood of the child of the dragon with the powers of the grand-son of the first dragon."  
  
"True, true. And they are essential to the summoning ritual, but still. I suppose it is too late to worry about that, however." Celebi shook her head. "Only I could change anything to it, and I won't."  
  
"I see you all have agreed on what will happen now." The new voice was one none of them had heard in eons, a voice all but a few considered to be a myth.  
  
Shining with stunning light, feathers of gold and silver glittering under the sun and seemingly living with an inner fire, the great shape of Ho-Oh approached them suddenly, as they all watched the great bird approaching, their faces stunned.  
  
"Ho-Oh...what a surprise..." Lugia finally commented, stunned.  
  
"I have my role to play too this time. But for now, all we can do is wait." He finished, and they all stood silent.  
  
Only a few days remaining, a few days over lives that had lasted eons, and would last eons more.  
  
______________________________  
  
"My lord, I have failed." Bowed, her head resting on the floor, Syraelle carefully kept her smirk hidden. The Prince of the night, Tremayne, would not watch her mind, not without being given good reasons to do so.  
  
"How so?" The question was no longer a voice in her mind, but a simple question asked like any other man would have asked. But the one asking was no man, no human.  
  
"I have not succeeded in securing you an advantage in the coming battle." She replied, knowing what his reaction would be to that. He did not want them to secure him an advantage, that would unbalance the results of the fight. He had to triumph alone, or else his victory would be marred, as had been the victory of the nine a thousand year before.  
  
"There is no failure in that, I must triumph alone." The answer was predictable. "If the triumph of either side is marred, then the seals will be made weaker. As they where a thousand year ago, when Akira attacked me alone."  
  
"I'm sorry great lord, then. I have failed you in attempting to do so."  
  
The God was silent, contemplating something else, she had no idea what for a while. "True, but now you deserve to rest from your labors, even if they were misguided." He finally said, and she tensed. She knew all too well that rest was sometime synonymous with death when it came to the words of the God she served - or pretended to.  
  
"Rest well my servant. Should I win, I will have great need of you again." He seemed to walk away.  
  
"Yes, my lord."  
  
She smiled as he went away, walking to the door of the house they were in. She did not look at him, not wanting to look on the vaguely human creature she served, or at least pretended to. He had been very absorbed in his meditation lately, she had been able to act on her own without arousing his suspicions.  
  
"Well done my servant."  
  
The voice rang through her mind, and her smile vanished, deadly seriousness coming to her again.  
  
"Thank you master." She was walking on eggshells, she knew. If she sounded too pleased, it would seem like she cared too much for congratulations and words instead of action...and if she sounded not pleased enough, it would appears as if her master's words meant nothing to her. It was a dangerous way to walk, but one well worth it in the powers it gave her.  
  
"My brother now walks to his doom Syraelle. Will you take my mark, and be one of my champions?"  
  
"Of course master." The offer was one she had known would come for a long time. It was a power to counter the nine, should they ever walk in the way of his plans after the meeting.  
  
"To each element its own darkness. To the fire that gives warmth, the fire that burns. To the water that gives life, the peaceful water, the water of storms in the sea. To the ice that ward off heat, the ice of freezing winter that kills life. To the mind, ambition and selfishness. To the darkness that gives rest, the darkness that kills. To the electricity that power the world, the lighting that destroy."  
  
"I know my lord. I will be one of your champions if you but ask." She smiled, knowing the power she had long awaited was just within her grasp.  
  
"Then, will you be the darkness within the mind, the shadow of the soul, and let your ambition run free?"  
  
"I will."  
  
____________________________  
  
Snow had fallen around them once, a light snow that had soon melted, but a certain sign that winter had come to them, such as winter was in the southernmost parts of Johto. December, and soon the day of the meeting would come.  
  
As soon as Damian was dead.  
  
The very thought made Elayne shiver, though part of her shivering might have been due to the fact that it was starting to get cold and that the only thing that covered her was a rather thin bedcover. But then, she could help the shivering easily. With a smile, she moved closer to the young man sleeping, letting his warmth and his presence sooth her. For the briefest of moment, she wondered if they had succeeded, knowing now it was too late.  
  
She pushed the thought aside, trying again to fall asleep, despite the dark thoughts that filled her minds. At least she would find out about it soon enough.  
  
A soft silver glow suddenly filled the room, and she turned to face the source of it, knowing all too well who it was before she even saw. Her hair like twilight, Enaira was now there, watching them with a sad smile.  
  
"Is...it's now, isn't it?" She asked fearfully, praying fervently that there was still a way around it.  
  
"Yes." The answer was simple, the eyes of the goddess filled with sympathy. "I wish there was another way Elayne. But that's the way it must be. The meeting will take place tomorrow, at sunset." She shook her head sadly, leaving to Elayne the impression that somehow she was very reluctant to do what she had to.  
  
"Can I have some more time with him? An hour?" She finally asked, her voice lingering in the room, a plea from her breaking heart. She needed desperately to talk to him one last time, to tell him goodbye.  
  
"I can give you half an hour." The goddess answered. "But the sun will be rising soon, and he must be dead by then. It has to be that way." With those words, the goddess gently shook Damian awake. The young man's eyes filled with pained understanding as soon as he saw her. As the lady of twilight vanished, Damian's eyes met with Elayne.  
  
"So...that's it..." his voice was heavy, filled with regret. "I wish...I wish we could have been together longer." He shook his head sadly.  
  
"So..." She gulped. "So do I. I'd...I'd have wanted to grow old with you, spend years and years together..." a tear ran down her cheeks, the first of many.  
  
His arms suddenly were tightly wrapped around her sobbing form, and as she held him back she could feel him weeping, too. He did not want to die, knew he had to, that much was obvious. They just kept close to each other, their hearts reaching out in aching pain. He only let go of her for a brief moment to put on some clothes, and was soon back to holding her.  
  
"I'll...I'll never forget you." She said, her arms holding him tighter. "You changed me so much...you'll always be in my heart. Forever." She whispered through her tears.  
  
"And if there's anything waiting...anything beyond...then I'll wait for you there." He answered, as their tears continued to fall, mixing.  
  
Soon, all too soon, the silver light returned, and Enaira appeared again.  
  
"It's time." She said softly, again the sound of weeping almost audible in her voice.  
  
One last time their lips met in a kiss, a final farewell for a love that would last beyond eternity. As she held him, the goddess let her hand rest on his shoulder. Her silver glow spread to Damian, and soon his body became limp as his eyes emptied of life.  
  
Chapter 28 : Death is Never the End  
  
"He...he's dead..." Elayne's sobbing words confirmed their worst fear, everything Ash had been afraid of upon seeing the young woman in the rest room, alone, her eyes tear-filled. Behind him, he heard a soft sound from Misty's mouth, a "No..." whispered. He shook his head, trying to clear the tears, the pain. Another of his close friend, gone. That he had known there were only a few days left changed nothing to it. It was a lost friend all the same.  
  
Too many of those he knew, people he liked, people he respected, dead. Duplica, at the old lumber mill, the first victim of their endless war. His mother, shot to death by a bullet meant for him. Melanie, who had given him his bulbasaur so long ago, shot by a Lotus soldier during the war. Many others he knew, dead in the endless fighting, friends he had only met shortly, but still people he knew. Gary, his life taken by the gun carried by his own sister, and May, killing herself immediately after. Richie, vanishing as their quest was about to begin.  
  
And now, Damian, spirited away in the night by a tremendous force, the unwanted fourth sign that destiny was about to be fulfilled. Too many friends gone forever, lost. He felt an arm on his shoulder, and turned, wrapping his arms tightly around Misty who waited there. She was weeping, tears that matched his own, though hers were more numerous, tears for a beloved brother rather than tears for a friend.  
  
Elayne of course wept too, tears of pain beyond pain, a suffering that Ash could only begin to imagine - and, looking at Misty, a suffering he never wanted to go through. Through his tears, he looked at the others gathered, watching them. Sabrina did not weep, but he could see her struggling to keep her emotions at bay. Tanya did not weep either, but her face was filled with stone-hard determination. Apparently, she was readying herself for the battle already, focusing her emotions and turning them into strength. Jessie and James were off to the side, looking at them all sadly. A few tears had rolled down their cheeks, falling down below, but they had stopped falling.  
  
Unlike them, Melody was weeping openly, though not as much as Misty or Elayne, tears for a lost friend just like Ash's. They all had lost something with Damian's death, something dear to them.  
  
But even weeping could not last forever. An hour, two of remembering, three for Elayne, and their eyes were dry of tear as they gathered to remember one last time what had happened on their long quest, to spend some more time together, before facing destiny.  
  
"I don't know why I even left Pallet in the first place now...I mean, I wanted to be a pokemon master, but...It seems hollow now. I just lost interest in it all." Ash was first to speak.  
  
"At least you left your home for a reason that was yours alone. I just left to prove myself to my sisters...prove myself, right."  
  
"You did."  
  
"Yeah, guess so...but honestly, I don't care much about that anymore. I care a lot more about meeting someone on the road." She let her head rest on his shoulder.  
  
Despite the pain of their friend's death lingering, talking seemed to have some sort of exorcising effect, letting them go around the fact they all had lost someone they held dear. It would not banish the pain, that much was sure, but by simply keeping them busy, it would let them not think about it.  
  
"Do you remember when we first met Ash?" Sabrina asked.  
  
"Let's see...do I really want to remember?" The answer came easily, though of course he already remembered it all. It had been unpleasant, to say the least.  
  
"At least she did it to you only once. Brock and I got to be her puppets twice." Misty pointed out.  
  
Sabrina shook her head, a faint smile appearing on her lips.  
  
"I was really terrible, wasn't I?" She asked.  
  
"Moderately so, yes." Ash nodded.  
  
"What do you mean, "got to be her puppets"?" Jeffrey asked, curiosity shining in his eyes. "She didn't use her powers to..."  
  
"Sure she did." Ash grinned. "She reduced us to puppet size and put us in a puppet house.  
  
"I think I'll try doing that to a few of those guys who see women as toys. Might change their views of thing." Tanya grinned. Ash shuddered, not at the idea of what would be done to them, but at the idea of guys thinking of women as toys.  
  
"You know, I think I'll help you with that." Sabrina's answer was ominous.  
  
"Could we please talk about something else?" Melody pleaded, as memories she would rather have kept buried obviously came back unbidden to her mind.  
  
They continued talking on and on, hours passing by slowly. Time seemed to crumble, a slow descent toward oblivion.  
  
"There's another problem we have to deal with..." The realization had come to Ash suddenly, something he had known but not fully taken in consideration before. "We're eight. We're short one member." He looked at them all.  
  
Sabrina nodded, her eyes reflecting the fact that she has been thinking of the very problem already, her hands idly resting on the armbands of her chair, her violet cloak draped around her shoulders as her staff sat propped on the wall nearby.  
  
Misty swore once, looking at them all in turn, her eyes suddenly deep in thought, perhaps wondering what could have gone wrong that one of them would be missing at the last moment. Sitting on the couch by Ash, she had removed her arm from his shoulders where it had been resting for a few minutes. Now she sat, gazing thoughtfully at empty air.  
  
With an oath, Tanya struck her fist on the table, a look of frustration crossing her features as lightning seemed to flare from her lavender eyes. The other reacted in similar way, except one, Kyle, who walked away, apparently lost in thought, to another of the room of what had been their house for the last two months.  
  
"It just doesn't make sense. There has to be something we can do...I mean, they wouldn't go ahead and kill the Seeker just to have us fail because one of us so happens to be missing!" Jeffrey said ragedly, his arm hitting the table violently, something that was to say the least unusual for the calm scientist.  
  
"Who said those prophecies made sense? Makes no sense to kill him like that after all he did for them." Elayne's voice was bitter, angry, furious at the terrible loss she had been forced to accept - and at the fact that to all extent it now seemed that loss had been a wasted life.  
  
"Maybe we should try to find Damian's copy of the prophecies and look at it? There might be something in it..." Sabrina suggested.  
  
"Good idea." Tanya nodded. "I'll go get it." She stormed off, barely finishing the sentence.  
  
"Hopefully there will be some clue in that...otherwise, we're toast..." Jessie stated ominously, looking intently at the empty air, as if looking for a clue in it.  
  
Tanya was soon back, and handed the book to Ash, who immediately started reading it, rapidly moving his eyes across those parts he already knew. He didn't need the description of each member of the nine, and he had already heard that of the Lost Soul long ago. What he needed to find was what the prophecies said about how and when the Lost Soul would be found.  
  
His desperate searching went on and on, yet no answers came. There were many prophecies mentioning the lost soul, but none of them referred to her joining the group, when or how it would take place. Only the prophecies concerning the fourth sign seemed of any relation to that, as they stated that the seeker would die so as to complete his quest. Perhaps the meaning was that the Lost Soul would only join them now that the young man was dead, at least Ash fervently hoped so.  
  
"I hope you're guess that she'll show up on her own after the seeker's death is right Ash..." Jeffrey shook his head. "I don't want to see what will happen if we go on without all of us being around....  
  
"That might turn out ugly." Sabrina stated simply.  
  
"I think we all need to relax. Melody, can you play that tune you were playing the other day, please?"  
  
She nodded, leaving and returning soon with the small flute. Flashing them a brief smile, she brought the strange instrument to her lips, and let out the first notes of the strange, soothing melody he had already heard once.  
  
Soothing peace flowed in him suddenly, relief after the panicked events, as the clear notes banished not only the stress of worrying about the last missing members of their group, but also the sorrow he felt, sorrow still there even though it was blurred in the background.  
  
His friends also seemed to relax greatly as the crystal notes reached their hears. Misty moved closer to him, letting her head rest on his shoulder, seemingly content again, her cascading red hair falling on him. He caressed her, a gentle touch, as soft as the notes themselves.  
  
Sabrina seemed to let go of her defenses for once, her eyes softening, no longer hidden behind their walls. She breathed deeply, apparently discovering again emotions, though this time by peace and contentment instead of laughter and joy. Besides her, Tanya's rage had quickly subsided, and the young woman now sat down, idly playing with a lock of her strange silver white air.  
  
Elayne even seemed to be affected by the strange power of the music, her face no longer filled with pain but now with acceptance, perhaps some few lingering traces of sorrow, but so few that they were unnoticeable, her face a face of peace and calm.  
  
Abandoning his study of the faces of his companions, Ash let his spirit wander down the path of the music, letting the images it brought to mind be his only guide. Great trees, their smallest branches barely shaking in a soft whisper of wind. Birds chirping in the trees, not a specific kind of pokemon, just birds, those birds he had never paid attention to.  
  
In his mind picture, he could hear a soft sound of water cascading down, there was a river running through the forest nearby, probably even a small waterfall of sort. He could not see it, but the clear sound of Melody's music made it impossible not to perceive it.  
  
Opening his eyes again, he watched the sky outside, noticing that the sun would soon be down. They had eaten a little at lunch, and would certainly need to do so again before the time of the fight came. In the diminishing light, he barely noticed the falling feather, but a stray ray of the day star struck it, and caught in direct lighting, it was impossible to miss it.  
  
The sparkling gold and silver feather slowly was floating down toward the ground, like a snowflake drifting in the wind. It seemed so light, so soft, Ash wanted to reach out to it, hold it, but of course that was impossible. There was something else, however, about the strange feather. It seemed...familiar. The color was one Ash had seen before, that very coloring, with the gold and silver and sparkling colors, like the rainbow...  
  
On the very first day of his journey, after the storm, when he had made his way to the Viridian pokemon center to get Raiken healed. He had seen the bird the feather belonged too, flying by the rainbow, like an ancient legend.  
  
They went to the table, gathered to eat again, noticing the buttler had come one last time to bring them the food they would eat before their battle.  
  
"It's almost time...and she isn't there yet. We're without a lost soul, and without a chance to win." Elayne commented finally.  
  
"Wrong, on both count." A new voice said, speaking from the now open door, a door none of them had noticed opening.  
  
But it was a voice that could not be. There just was no way he could be hearing her, not now, not nearly a year after....Yet there was no mistaking the voice he knew from his childhood. But she just couldn't be there. couldn't be with them.  
  
The dead did not rise from the grave, not even the greatest heroes, let alone the enemies, the bad guys. That just wasn't the way of the world. She could not be there.  
  
Yet, standing in the doorway, a red and gold cloak covering her shoulders, a long sword sheathed at her belt, no longer wearing her white uniform but simple blue jeans and a white shirt, there she was.  
  
May Oak.  
  
The Lost Soul.  
  
"Death," Misty's voice echoed through the now silent room. "really isn't the end, isn't it?"  
  
"I'd rather it was..." the whisper was May's herself, a whisper Ash doubted anyone else had heard.  
  
"It tends to be, generally." Jeffrey's voice was not too stunned. "If someone would actually care to do the presentations...she's familiar, but I can't quite place her face."  
  
"May, that's Jeffrey Surge, a researcher." Ash build up the courage to actually address the woman, once a friend, once an enemy. "Jeffrey, that's May Oak...she used to be a general of the Crimson Lotus..."  
  
Jeffrey's eyes flashed with thunder as he drew his halberd and faced her, then renounced to attack her that way. "You're goons killed my best friend...you're going to pay..." a flash of lighting flew out of his hands, but before it could even strike May, it was absorbed, a psychic shield coming up in place to defend the woman. "Murderer." Jeffrey's voice snapped.  
  
May did not answer to the accusation, not at first, as a pained look crossed her face, remorse and apparent distaste for her own actions. "I know. I have lots of blood on my hand, and I'd rather be forever gone than here...but I don't have the choice. I need to be here, and you guys need me."  
  
Ash hesitated a moment, then let an hand rest on the young woman's shoulder, a comforting touch. There was a lot he could blame her for, slaughter, death, destruction...but blaming her would be pointless, empty. She had fought for what she had believed in, so had he, they both had blood on their hands now. There had been no way for her to tell, back then, that she was wrong. Part of him wanted to hate her for what she had done, but the other side just had to admit that there was no way he could blame her for fighting in a war that she had perceived as right, just as he had perceived his fight against the lotus as right.  
  
The pain in her eyes soon faded, though Ash knew the remorse was still there, that she would never completely forgive herself for what she had done.  
  
"We need to put all our fighting aside now. We need to be just one group, fighting together." Turning toward his friend, Ash reminded them of what was coming.  
  
Only two mysteries remained, now that the nine were gathered.  
  
They still did not know what role Melody was supposed to play, whatever she was meant to do in the scheme of things, and of course, there was yet one thing to find out. How could nine humans, no matter how powerful, ever stand a chance against a deity?  
  
Chapter 29 : Time of Destiny  
  
The sun setting, they walked outside, all of them save Kyle, who had vanished, weapons drawn. The doors were no longer locked, it seemed as if all living souls had left the area, forever perhaps. Fingering the hilt of his sword, wondering why the servants of a priest eager to bring down the world would want something required by the balance of the world to taoke place, Ash watched around.  
  
There was something, something he had yet to find out. A missing piss in the puzzle of the scheme they were now facing, one that held the truth they all desperately needed.  
  
"The rats have abandoned the ship." Jeffrey commented gloomily.  
  
"I wonder what they're afraid of." Eyeing the world around them warily, Elayne let her hand rest on the hilt of her combat dagger. She was ready to put up a fight, if there ever was need, and the fact that the weapon she head ready was her dagger, not her bow, shouted loudly to them all she was expecting Avaraen to show up.  
  
"I'd like to know." Misty whispered, her voice edgy, her blade drawn and ready. Her stunning aqua eyes scanned their surrounding efficiently, not letting a single patch of shadow go unseen.  
  
"I think..." Melody's whisper was barely audible as her eyes were lost in contemplation. She was not reflecting on their problem, Ash was sure, though he had no idea why. No, rather she was thinking of something that concerned her primarily, and them all only on the edge.  
  
"I know what to do." She finally stated, racing back toward the large house they had been in as soon as she was finished.  
  
"What is she doing?" May asked in surprise. "I mean, we don't have time to waste..."  
  
"Let her do it. I think she know what she's doing." Ash objected, an inkling of a thought coming into his mind as he remembered unsuspected powers that had already saved him once.  
  
"I hope she does." With a shake of her head, May sighed. "I sure had no idea what I was doing...and look where it got me."  
  
"We all make mistakes." Sabrina's quiet voice was quick to point out. "You paid the price of what you did - you died. Now you've been given another chance at living. Make use of it, and put what happened before behind."  
  
"Not that easy." May sighed.  
  
"Where is he?" Elayne's question was completely unrelated to their discussion.  
  
"Who? Tremayne?" Ash answered quickly, still trying to think up a way to help May.  
  
"Well, him too, but I was more thinking about Kyle. We are kind of one neverborn short, you know..."  
  
"I noticed." With a nod, Ash thought about the question, wondering what was wrong now. "I don't think we'll need him right away. And I don't think the neverborn is Kyle." He finally answered.  
  
They waited a few moments more for Melody to come back, finally she returned, holding her flute tightly against her, her eyes wondering. "Now, I just need you to shut up and listen, please don't say a thing...I really don't know what I'm doing, but I'm giving it a try." She explained quickly, not making much sense to Ash at first.  
  
She lifted the strange flute to her lips once more, drawing again the sound as pure as crystal that they all had heard once already. But this time there was a subtle difference to the notes. No longer where they the soothing melody they all had heard only minutes ago, now the new notes seemed to stir something deep in them all, an ancient spirit waiting only to be awakenened.  
  
Light encircled Fang, the great katana he carried, turning slowly in a beam, then a read dragon shape, a shape that soon coalesced in Aysen, his eyes shining with a light, a light dimming and growing in accord with the notes from the flute. Around his neck, the piece of rope that held the small scale he had been carrying for long started moving, and the golden fleck detached itself to float away.  
  
A blue light enveloped him, barely perceptible at first, growing with each passing moment, a light without source. He felt his eyes closing as something deep inside awakened, a spirit like none he had ever felt, a spirit he suspected was the very soul of prophecy.  
  
___________________________________  
  
May watched, stunned amazement crossing his features as eight of her companions seemed first to be surrounded by a shining aura, then to fall in a deep trance, finally as the aura coalesced in great shapes, yellow jagged wings around Jeffrey, flames-like red wings around Jessie, strange blue wings around James, flowing aqua water around Misty, and dark blue bat-like wings around Ash, while similar black wings surrounded Tanya. Elayne seemed to be encased in flowers, and Sabrina in a purple crystal.  
  
"What's happening?" she whispered, and from what seemed a great distance, an answer came.  
  
"For t he confrontation, the nine are the destiny-bonded vessels for the power of the eight great pokemon May." The answer came. "They act of their own free will, but with powers far greater than what would usually be theirs."  
  
"And they'll keep that power?" Disbelief struck her.  
  
"Only a small boon." The answer was quick.  
  
There was something else, something that was bothering her far more than the fact that they might possibly keep a inkling of power beyond human understanding.  
  
"What of me?" She asked finally.  
  
"You are a strange case. For the first time the lost soul, the one who stand for mankind, has been given a boon by one of the legendary." The spirit answered.  
  
The "boon", so to speak, was very obviously her return to the waking world - or, as many civilizations would put it, the dreaming world, from which one would awaken at death. She was not so sure she would call it that - curse was perhaps more appropriate - but she had been needed, and allowed to return.  
  
There were no sounds save for those of the flute, the air was empty.  
  
"It's soon now..." May whispered, watching the strangely luminescent cocoons enveloping her...not friends, no. Ash might see her as such, the others certainly did not, they barely even knew her, and the little they knew of her was the worst they could know. They were not her friends, she was not ready to consider them as such, and they definitely would not want of her friendship. They were allies, and only because they had no other choices, there was just no other way around it.  
  
The strange cocoons remained, enveloping them still in the wonderful, mysterious light. Jagged feathers, bat-like wings, the shells were still around them.  
  
The music slowly vanished, each note fainter than the one before, the crystal sounds disappearing as utter silence came to be. The light of the cocoons slowly faded away, vanishing from the world as the dim light of the sun remained alone once more.  
  
The cocoons themselves vanished, revealing once again her companions. At first sight, they seemed unchanged, except perhaps for an old wound gone here, a little shift of expression. But somehow, she was sure that there was something very much different about them now, beyond receiving the power for a while and the boon until their death.  
  
Looking at them again, she perceived some small changes, hardly perceptive but there all the same. At the edge of Ash's shirt, barely visible, a golden dragon leg seemed to be engraved on his skin, like a tattoo, but one that was life-like and seemed to move inside his skin. The strange figure appearing at the edge of Misty's shirt sleeves seemed to be a great ocean, one whose waves crashed endlessly on the edge of her skin. Each of the other had some form of such image, at least all those for whom she could see part of their arms.  
  
"So you all are ready." A voice roared as a shadow blocked the sun for a while. May turned, watching the creature clothed in black and silver, with jet-black hair and shining eyes who approached them from above, great black angel wings outspread, the red tip of the feathers barely visible in the falling light.  
  
____________________________________________  
  
"We are." Ash spoke, and somehow, to Melody, his voice sounded different, slightly altered only, but still different, somehow reminiscent if the great roar of a mighty dragon.  
  
"We are." May agreed, instinctively knowing she had to give that particular answer just then.  
  
"Yes." Misty confirmed, her voice like the water cascading downs in the meadows.  
  
One by one, they all nodded, their voice slightly altered to sounds more like the element they each stood for, whether it was cascading water by a spring, or the lashing sound of thunder, the frosty, biting wind of winter, the crackling sound of a fire or else the peaceful noises of nature.  
  
"Then so be it." The dark angel's wings shrank, vanishing in dark light as a blade appeared in each of his nearly white hand. The one blade in his left hand seemed very ordinary, not even close to those Ash and his companions carried, but the blade in his right hand was altogether different. It seemed to glint with a red light, though with a silver light at the same time, mixing strangely in a pulsating luminescence. His face, which they could now see, was very handsome, pale and framed by ebon hair, luminescent blue eyes in the middle of it. "The light of the sun will be gone in a few hour. Should you manage to draw my blood by then, you will win. Otherwise, victory will be mine. Are we agreed?" His voice was not dark, not menacing, no such, rather it was peaceful, the voice of a father leading his children to sleep.  
  
"We are." Ash nodded again.  
  
"Then, it's time." The God lashed out with one of his blade, whirling toward Elayne, who nimbly sidestepped, barely even getting nicked on the forearm, a nick that had vanished in moments as a green glow surrounded her.  
  
__________________________  
  
As soon as the blade struck out toward Elayne, Ash moved in to the attack, moving faster than he had ever thought he could to try to attack the lord of the night from behind with a up-down slicing blow, but before he could even strike, the being had turned back, intercepting the sword with his own in a shower of sparks. Misty's sword came next, a strike aimed at the waist, but, spinning rapidly, Tremayne was able to intercept it before it even came close.  
  
A flury of psychic energy flew out of Sabrina's outstretched hand, but to vanish on a wall of darkness a few inches away from Tremayne as the God blocked out attacks from Tanya and May with his two blades. "You'll have to do better than that!" He stated, releasing a wave of shadow toward James, who narrowly dodged out of the way, the tendrils of night passing just above his head.  
  
"He's right, that won't work!" May shouted in turn, as they all continued unleashing their swords against him, fell blows after fell blows, trying desperately to defeat their enemy.  
  
Withdrawing to a safer distance, Ash desperately tried to come up with a way they could take to get in a strike, realizing now that the swords would not get past his defenses, not as long as he could put them up that quickly. They had to weaken him another way, but he couldn't see one, not quickly. The blades of the master of the stars clashed with a loud metallic noise in those of Misty and Jessie as they rushed in to attack, while a silver fire burned Elayne's arrow. An aura of darkness enveloped May, throwing her back as she tried again to attack, and James barely managed to avoid her as she was pushed backward. Tanya nearly managed to strike, while Sabrina's power once again were absorbed by a shield of night.  
  
"That really isn't working." May commented, withdrawing as soon as she was up, James following her.  
  
"What happened earlier when Melody played her flute...that has to mean something..." Ash pointed out, trying to think what they could do to win the fight still. No matter how hard he sought through his mind, no idea came.  
  
The other six kept on, relentlessly and uselessly attacking, their sword meeting steel or darkness with every blow. There was no drawing the blood of their enemy, there wouldn't be. The sun was slowly lowering in the west, the light ever so slowly disappearing. Already twenty minutes were gone by, a third of the battle.  
  
"You're the tactician May...how do we deal with that?" turning toward her, Ash let out the question.  
  
"My experience's with battle involving armies clashing. I can't help much with a case involving a god that seems untouchable."  
  
"I don't think any of us has that kind of experience." James pointed out, watching the battle, his spear drawn, pointlessly waiting for an opening to charge.  
  
The fight went on down below, blades clashing, arrows vanishing. Tremayne now seemed on the offensive, and the duo of Sabrina and Jessie seemed hard pressed to push back his attacks. There were no way, they would simply not defeat the lord of midnight.  
  
Misty approached, her sword ready to strike, an attack that would miss again. Suddenly, as clearly as if he was watching a movie he had already seen, he knew that Tremayne was aware of Misty's approaching, that when she would go for her strike, he would meet her attack - and strikes back, a killing blow.  
  
Only, it was a movie he still had a chance to rewrite the script for.  
  
"A choice, uh?" He muttered, remembering the words of Leilia what had seemed an eternity ago, when they had found Tanya to be one of their numbers.  
  
It wasn't even a choice, it was a matter of giving up his own life or something he did not want to live without. Either way he would be dead, but at least she would be safe.  
  
Sprinting faster than he ever thought he could, he raced toward Misty as Tremayne turned, pushing his blade forward, toward the young woman's unprotected waist. At the last instant, Misty fell out of the way, pushed to safety by Ash...  
  
And, flashing from his waist, spreading through his body, Ash felt unparalleled pain as the sword struck him, as golden light rose from the wound and blood flowed, meeting dark energy coming from the hilt toward the place were steel met flesh.  
  
"I'm sorry it has to be this way." Tremayne's voice seemed to reach him as the pain increased.  
  
"ASH!!!!! NO!!!!!!" Misty's scream, carrying all the despair of a shattered heart, rang over the whole plateau.  
  
Chapter 30 : Duel of the Fates  
  
Oh God no...  
  
The thought rang through May's mind as Ash felt backward, slowly toppling to the ground like a falling card castle. The sickening light around his wound flashed ,swirled, came through the blade, but it didn't only follow the blade. It seemed drawn toward Tremayne like a moth to light.  
  
A sickening thought flashed through May's mind as she considered what this could mean. Looking at Tremayne, it seemed like the golden light was weakening him, much so. Not enough yet to allow them to strike, but it was weakening him. If she was right...trying it on herself would not work if she was right, so there was only one thing to do.  
  
"Sorry James, need to check on something." She quickly nicked him with her sword, a tiny cut that would barely cause any pain, but would make some blood flow.  
  
Whispers of pale blue light flashed from the wound, flowing slowly toward Tremayne as well, adding to the golden light already streaming from Ash's wound. Rather than simply adding a little to the effects of the first energy, however, the new strike seemed to multiply them, as they grew stronger.  
  
Understanding flashed in the eyes of the others as they wounded themselves in a way or another, letting the light strike toward the prince of darkness. Red light from Jessie's hand wound, for the fire, and violet light from Sabrina's lips, which she had bitten to the point were they bled as her weapon was too blunt to do the trick. Aqua light from Misty's wound on the waist, similar in length though not in depth to the one Ash now had, a wound that would obviously leave a scar, something May could guess was quite intentional. Green light, from the series of little cut Elayne inflicted on herself as they soon healed themselves.  
  
The light surrounded Tremayne, weakening him, a rainbow of power drawing out the strength of their opponent. The prince of night withdrew, slowly pulling away from his opponent as he obviously became weaker...as he became someone they actually could attack.  
  
The other arrayed themselves for another flurry of attack, Jeffrey and James, halberd and spear held pointed forward, ready to charge. Tanya, standing alone, her bladed staff held ready to strike, the young woman looking like a coiled snake, a snake about to strike.  
  
Jessie's eyes remained unerringly locked on the dark god, as she held her sword slowly behind her, ready for a quick swing as soon as there was an opening. Sabrina's eyes flared again as she readied her psychic power for yet another strike, the blue blaze surrounding her body.  
  
They were all ready, and now was the time to strike. Her sword held clear, May readied herself for a charge.  
  
At once, they all rushed toward their enemy, weapon held ready to strike, all save Misty who was already near the fallen Ash, trying to tend his wound, and Elayne, who elected midway through her charge to go help them instead, perhaps realizing that her dagger would not get her far in the battle - without much success from what May could see, from the little she perceived of it before the rush of blood from battle prevented her from thinking of anything but the sound of clashing blades, the vision of impending doom on a sharp edge of shining steel.  
  
They all attacked nearly at once, an overhead blow from May, her blade whistling through the air as Jeffrey's halberd threatened to pierce a lightly protected right side. On the left side, no better protected, James' spear posed a similar threat. Sabrina's blazing psychic fire was no longer aimed at piercing the shield of darkness, but rather it enveloped Tanya, who moved with unnatural speed, sliding low to strike upward from the ground as Jessie swung her heavy sword at their enemy's unprotected back.  
  
Tremayne managed to stave off the first wave of assault, one blade intercepting May's sword as a nimble jump removed the combined menaces of James, Tanya and Jeffrey. Jessie's sword nearly struck true, but the dark god vanished out of the way just in time.  
  
____________________________  
  
The battle far away was terrible, both of the Goddess could perceive it as they watched through the rift between the dimensions that Leilia had opened. Enaira's heart ached to help the nine, but they all had agreed not to intervene, that the two side would be balanced in the battle.  
  
"You would like to help them, wouldn't you sister?" Leilia asked softly, her golden draconic scales glittering in the eternal light of the Asgard, the outer realm were the Gods, among others, remained while they were not on earth, visiting their devotees.  
  
"Of course I would. I took too much time working to bring these up to readiness, to see them fighting desperately today...I wish I could do something."  
  
"But of course you can't." her sister shook her head.  
  
"No."  
  
The battle raged on below, neither side gaining a clear advantage, and already over half the time they had been given had flown past. Too much time, flying past too soon.  
  
A small pain flashed in her chest, something barely noticeably, just like a small pebble falling and striking her. She continued watching, ignoring the little repeated stabs of nearly absent pain, as if pebbles were now raining on her.  
  
Yet, there came a time where she could no longer ignore it, as the pain continued to spread, still almost unnoticeable, but definitely present and annoying. She looked around, her eyes desperately searching for what seemed to be objects falling on her but she found none.  
  
"Something wrong?" her sister's worried voice came to her ears as the pain from the little impacts that weren't impacts increased, picking up, becoming soon unbearable.  
  
"I don't know what's happening..." she breathed out as pain tore her body. She was a Goddess. She was not subject to pain, she was not living. She was...  
  
She had known this was coming for a long time, had hoped to stave it off, had known it would never work. As the pain increased tenfold, black gates seemed to open before her, oblivion waiting patiently. With the last of her strength, she forged a portal to her own realm, her domain in Asgard, where she fell on the ground, her strength draining out. The letter she had written was still there, waiting only for the one who would one day read it.  
  
All was ready, all that could be, but with the events about to happen, she fought to stay on, to have the strength to remain alive until the last moment, where everything would end.  
  
It was too much for even her, and all too the dark powers swirling inside her, alien powers even she did not understand, swallowed her spirit, leaving only an empty shell in dully gray behind, the remnants of a goddess who had watched over the world since the very dawn of time.  
  
There was no order, no balance anymore, Destiny was gone.  
  
Wave of chaos swept over the world.  
  
____________________________  
  
Blades met again in a clashing flash of steel. The weakening Tremayne still faced off the onslaught, but each new strike eroded his defenses a little more, to the point that soon he would no longer be able to hold on. May's blow toward the neck of the god was met by dark steel, another failed strike.  
  
The light of the sun was vanishing, in a few minutes the fight would be over, in a few minutes, they would have lost, unless they managed the impossible now. James and Jessie struck simultaneously, desperate attacks at the opponetn who stood against them all.  
  
The first strike was met with steel, but where the blow had been meant only to deflect the spear, it shattered it instead, and the blade went forward as Tremayne lost his balance, only thus avoiding the second strike, as his loss of balance sent his other sword to the ground. With great shouts, battle cries roaring, Tanya struck, not attempting to use the edge of her weapon anymore, but rather trying to pierce the stomach of their enemy with it.  
  
With a startled shout, Tremayne tried to block the strike with his steel blade, the one that had not fallen to the ground when he had lost his balance. He would succeed, but with his second sword lost, he would be defenseless for a moment. May's sword flashed forward again, toward the shoulder of the being.  
  
Yet again, nothing went as they expected, as the blow meant to deflect Tanya's strike somehow slid on the blade, failing to alter its direction, as the sharp steel dug deep in his godly flesh. With a startled cry, the deity drew back, slightly altering his position. May had no time to stop her sword, despite the two cries of "May! No!" That rang simultaneously, one through her mind and one from the weakened Ash.  
  
The sword met flesh, not the flesh of the shoulder as had been her plan, but the flesh of the neck, a blow that would have severed the head of any normal human being, though it didn't inflict so sever damage to the nearly immortal being.  
  
Nearly immortal. Even for a God, the strike was a killing blow, one that meant certain death.  
  
As the divine being slowly topped backward, falling to the ground with an expression of utter surprise on his face, energy began to form up around his body, crackling bolts of strange bluish lightning. The energy slowly expanded around the body, suddenly turning in a shock wave that knocked them all back, not far, but still a little.  
  
As the wave receded, May briefly realized that all the lights of the house had gone out at once. She had no time to wonder about it, as another wave formed up, one that looked made of pure fire, one that, she knew, would certainly kill them if it struck.  
  
"No." The voice rang through her mind, she was sure others heard it too. Looking around, she saw a strange cat-like being floating in the air above the battlefield, surrounded in a blue fire far more intense than the one that had been around Sabrina. As the fire started to expand, blue light formed up around her, a shield that seemed to protect them. More waves of fire came, terrible, and even the being who was protecting them all seemed to weaken.  
  
With a great cry, their shields went down, and another wave of fire came out, but just before it struck them all, she felt herself wrenched away through space, the world blurring around her just as the fire was about to strike them all.  
  
"What have I done..." she whispered softly in dismay as strange powers whisked her away, to what would hopefully be safety - provided safety would be left in the world.  
  
___________________________  
  
As the dreadful raging fire swallowed him, Mewtwo felt strangely thankful that the life he had been given, the life he had never wanted, would be over, once and for all. His only thought as the flames brought him down, defeated him, was that perhaps in the world where he would find himself, the land of the dead, Ai waited for him, the one he had known in his infancy, not the one he had cloned later out of need. The one Ai he wanted to find again, the one who had shaped his life.  
  
I'm coming Ai...I'm coming...  
  
______________________________  
  
Ascending to the edge of the crater was no easy task from the bottom of the great valley, yet somehow, Gary had felt it was something he had to do. There was something he knew he would have to see, something he would only be able to see from there.  
  
He had no idea how it was that he was still alive, one moment feeling the pain of a bullet ripping through his flesh to awaken the next, without any traces of it, in a crater far away. Had it not been for the stains of blood on his clothes, he would have sworn it had all been a dream, yet he knew that such could not be the case.  
  
Strangest of all, however, was the one he had found to be with him in the crater. She had died a thousand year ago, yet she was as alive as he now, given flesh again, returned to the world for reason unfathomable. Perhaps it had to do with the way he had been healed, that much was possible. But whatever the reason, Tomoyo now stood next to him, as beautiful as she had seemed on that one day they had met - so to speak - in the Shrine of the Dragons. Jet-black hair framing her fair face, a long kimono covering her, her two blades; almost identical to the two he carried which had once been hers; at her belt.  
  
There was a sudden flash of light to the east, past the sea, in what he could only guess to be the mountains of Alph from his rudimentary knowledge of world geography. Crackling blue lightning arched all over the world from the east, a wave of destruction sweeping over the face of their world. Following in its wake, tremendous waves of light swept over, and mountains started to crash as the geography of the world was altered beyond recognition.  
  
As the seismic blasts kept on, he moved closer to Tomoyo, trying to shield her with his body in a strange reflex, but she moved out of the way. With a fierce glare she reminded him that she was as much if not more of a true warrior than he was, and that she could face the fury of the earth as well as him.  
  
The earthquakes continued, as the world was ripped apart. 


	7. Epilogue

Epilogue : Shattered World

The World had fallen, dying as shattering energy had swept over it, destroying technology, reshaping every single piece of what had once been a beautiful land. A land that was now altered beyond belief, plains where there had been mountains, swamps where there had been deserts, oceans were forests had stood. Nothing had remained the same, and mankind was dying.

May knew that she had been transported to Serland by the mysterious being, and she knew that her way back home was to the east. But she could not leave, not with the way things had turned out. Not yet, and hopefully, if she ever left, it would not be alone.

A strangled cough welcomed her as she returned in the small cave where she had made her home for a while, too afraid that her face would be recognized if she went and tried to find a village. To afraid of what might happen if she left, abandoning the one who now needed her.

Though perhaps the need was only an illusion she kept on her own eyes to avoid seeing the harsh truth, the fact that the figures lying down on a crude bed coughing would die even with her best efforts.

It just wasn't fair that him, of all people, would now die, not fair for him, as he deserved to live, not fair for those he loved, as they would lost an invaluable friend, and not fair for the world, as it would lose one of the few who could do something about it, those few who had the will to fight to do something. 

But Ash would die, she knew it, even though she desperately denied it. Yet she fought on, knowing that no matter what, there was one thing she had to find a way to do. She had to save him, even if it was impossible, even if the greatest healers would have failed in the task she was setting before herself.

"C'mon Ash...hang on..." her filled with unshed tears. He turned his head, taking all of his strength to turn toward her. For an instant, she wished she had been silent, but it was too late. He had already expanded some more of his precious strength to face her. She tried desperately again to find a way to help, but could not come up with any. Sharp guilt flashed in her mind. If she had held back her strike, he would have been in an hospital, they would have been able to save him. If she had not spoken just now, he would not have wasted his last remaining strength. If she had learned to heal rather than to lead warriors, she would perhaps be able to do something. But she had made her choices, and right now, it seemed that each choice she had made had been the wrong one.

The pain in Ash's chest seemed to grow stronger, and despite all her pretense, she knew that soon, he would not feel the pain anymore, that the wound would claim his life. The had once described he pain as intense, searing, as if a white-hot, hooked knife was being twisted inside his chest by a malevolent hand. That had been back when he had been able to talk coherently for more than a few short words together, back before the pain had robbed him of his ability to truly talk. She could only imagine how much it had worsened in the days since then.

Their eyes crossed again, tortured pain in his meeting with the feelings of anguish and loss she knew were in her owns. 

"Ash! Don't!" her pained cry seemed to tear at Ash's soul as it left her lips, the call of a tortured soul. "Don't die...I can't loose you too...not after..." desperately, she tried to call to him, to get him to summon some of the hidden strenght she knew he had. "I need you...Misty need you...the world need you." The tears were not held back this time, it was no use. They flowed freely on her cheeks, tears she did not bother to wipe, too pained to care.

"I'm...sorry..." his voice was less than a whisper, and as the last word slowly faded from his lips, she saw the life ebbing out of his wounded eyes, departing never to return, a last tortured sighs leaving behind his body as death finally came to him.

She let herself fall to the ground, knowing that the only one she truly considered as a friend was now dead, her only true friend in the world, the one person who had seemingly put behind the dark events of the Lotus war to take care of her lost soul.

Alone, she walked out of the cave, after making as much of a burial site as she could for her friend, letting his pokemon out to guard it despite what she had once advocated, despair filling her every though as she began her long trek back to Aysaka. Her long trek back to the world she had nearly destroyed on her own, barely even a year ago - what seemed a thousand eternities in the past.

_____________________________

Standing again at the edge of the crater, Gary watched the lonely dark figure walking away from the cave below. He had never gone there, the face of the cliff on that side of the island was too harsh to allow them to climb down.

But he knew who the figure was, could feel it in his every bone, deep in his soul. His sister, lost and shattered, everything that had ever meant anything to her taken away and destroyed. So much like what had happened to the world, turning it from a endangered but alive world, a world of change where everything could happen, to a devastated, broken world of ruin.

"One day...one day we'll have to leave that crater, and try to do something about it." He shook his head sadly as his eyes encompassed again the world that had once been so beautiful, that was now withering and dying.

There was still hope, there had to. There had to be a way to save the world from the oblivion it had fallen in.

And one day, someone would find it, him or someone else. No matter the price. 


End file.
